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There will be many extraordinary sights at these Commonwealth Games in Glasgow over the next 10 days. But few, you imagine, will top that of a volunteer ripping his T-shirt off and nosediving under the water, without goggles, to fix a broken rope while Adam Ramsay-Peaty waited on at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre.
The crowd, who had watched other volunteers fail to deal with the problem using large nets, cheered. And, after a 10-minute delay, Ramsay-Peaty was back smoking his rivals in the heats of the 100m breaststroke.
So was the double Olympic champion tempted to jump in and retrieve the item himself? “Definitely not,” he said. “Even if it’s a first – scoreboards break, clocks break – the guys got it together pretty well. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again.”
Over at the para powerlifting, meanwhile, there was more confusion as England’s Mark Swan won the first gold of these Games – but couldn’t fathom why it was given when he had ended with the same score as Nigeria’s Roland Ezuruike. Only an hour or so later did officials explain that a second decimal point had separated them.
But do you know what? Despite these initial teething problems, and a fair number of empty seats, it didn’t matter. These Games might be “reimagined” – which is management speak for “made smaller”. But, as the first full day of action showed, they retain plenty of soul and glow.
The soul? That was provided by the Botswanan lawn bowler Diza Mphotho, who delighted the crowd at the indoor SEC arena with his bucket hat and languid style, even if he ended up being on the reverse of a 10-3, 16-1 thrashing by Guernsey’s Jason Greenslade.
“It’s very hot in Botswana,” said Mphotho, an IT worker who took up the sport 10 years ago when his mother’s friend told him it could be his passport to see the world. “So I always play in my bucket hat.”
Bowls is not big in Botswana. Only about 200 people play it across four clubs. There was a fifth, Mphotho explained, but then a copper mine shut down and the funding dried up. But it has proven life-changing to him.
There was one other message Mphotho wanted to impart: he gets 20 days of annual leave a year – and he is using pretty much all of them to play in Glasgow. “We’ve already been here two weeks,” he said. “And it’s completely worth it.”
And the glow? That came from watching Swan’s celebration after he bench-pressed 222kg to win gold – a weight that, staggeringly, is more than three times his bodyweight.
It has also been some journey for the 25-year-old geordie, who started his powerlifting journey at an event for the Dwarf Sports Association Games, where he lifted 70kg to earn a bronze medal.
And it helped that he was roared on by a packed Armadillo Arena, partly because members of the Tartan Army were given four free tickets each to certain events to fill the blank spaces.
However, it is noticeable that there are fewer fans than usual from around the globe. That is largely explained by simple economics. When Glasgow rescued the Games after Victoria dropped out in 2023, there was no time to build an athletes’ village. And so athletes and officials are staying in hotels and other accommodation – which means a lack of supply, and crazy high prices, for everyone else.
One person told the Guardian they were paying nearly £300 a night for a tiny room in a three-star hotel. And the kicker? It doesn’t even have a window. However Phil Batty, the chief executive of Glasgow 2026, insists that plenty of people are still coming to Scotland to watch – but are staying outside the city.
And despite the empty seats, he insists the momentum is building.
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“We’ve got facilities like the velodrome where we’re completely sold out,” he said.
“But we have taken bold and brave decisions, like taking netball centre stage in the Hydro for nine days with 21 sessions. A Commonwealth Games of the past would have just had the final and the bronze medal match there.”
Insiders have told the Guardian that the 10,000-seater Hydro will look very empty for some netball matches. Batty’s response? “We have sold more tickets for netball than have ever been sold in the history of Scotland. But, yes, there’s still midweek netball tickets for £10 to buy.”
There have been some other missteps. When you walk through the city centre it is not obvious that a major event is taking place.
That is in striking contrast to Birmingham 2022, when Commonwealth branding was everywhere – and the bull from the opening ceremony became an overnight tourist attraction.
Yet the sense is that Glasgow is making a decent fist of staging a budget games where many of the big stars, including the Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson, have stayed away.
In the arenas, the commentators are enthusiastic, the crowds involved and the music upbeat. Although as the Stone Roses’ Made of Stone segues to another indie classic, it was tempting to ask whether Andy Burnham had hijacked the playlist.
But perhaps the abiding memory of day one was watching two young boys being utterly transfixed by Australia’s men’s 3x3 basketball team squeeze past New Zealand 21-15. Their mother Eilidh Rooney, who paid £150 for four tickets, said it had been worth it. “It’s lower key this year compared to 2014, when the entire city felt alive,” she said. “But there is a great buzz here.”
The roar that followed shortly after as Australia celebrated their victory suggested that plenty of others agreed.
