XVIII Commonwealth Games Blog

XVIII Commonwealth Games
Blog: 20th March 2006

XVIII Commonwealth Games Blog: 20th March 2006

I decided to introduce myself to two new sports yesterday. The organisers refused journalists access to the swimming events, clearly because they didn’t want to set aside media seats for such a popular sport (it’s the same with track cycling, netball and a few others - yes, I said netball, which was actually the first sport to completely sell out here). Anyway, since I couldn’t get into swimming, I thought I’d go down to the venue anyway, because that’s also where they’re playing squash and table tennis, two events I’d never seen on an international scale.

Actually I had watched table tennis at the 1995 All Africa Games in Zimbabwe - a room full of ping pong tables with player going mad - you didn’t know where to look! Here they were just two tables surrounded by a vast grandstand. There was only one match taking place - between a Malaysian and a Nigerian in the women’s singles competition. I took a media seat right on the floor and within a minute, the ping pong ball had landed at my feet. The Nigerian player looked at me, shrugged her massive gold-dyed, braided mop of hair and flicked her incredibly talon-like fingernails in my direction, clearly instructing me to give her back the ball. I somehow managed to throw it in her general direction and they were off again in a whirl of paddles, pinging and ponging. They make it look so effortless. And it was gratifying to see that even at this level you spend half the time hunting an errant ball in the corners of the room.

Another auditorium had 10 or 12 tables in it for the preliminaries, and it was much more frenetic. A couple of Australian men were clearly taking it far too seriously, stretching their muscles between points like a runner preparing for a sprint. And to be honest, they did look far fitter than a table tennis player really needs to be.

On to squash, which is was extremely curious about. After all, this is a game played inside a cramped little room. Where do you put the audience? Silly question. The auditorium was amazing to walk into - four large stands all facing the centre, in which sat a giant glass box, cleverly coated and lit so that from the inside the walls were opaque. But from the ourside it was like watching two guys in a fish tank. The semifinal match between two English players was riveting. They were fairly evenly matched, although the younger, more elegant looking guy was struggling against the scrappy skill of the older one (who won).

It’s a gripping sport to watch - fast-paced and energetic, full of surreal touches like the way the players wipe their sweaty hands on the glass and the brief breaks while cleaners squeegee the floor every now and then, as the players try to stay out of their way.

I then wandered into the neighbouring outer-courts space, which was a row of courts with back glass walls you could see into - kind of like puppy bins in a pet shop. Some were doubles courts, some single, one was clearly designed as practice space - it was tiny. There were no spectator seats here, you just roamed along the room, window shopping for a match that caught your fancy.

Rich Cline.

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