CYNICS might have noted that when Glasgow hosted the first ever Commonwealth Sports Development Conference, back in September 2006, it was 12 months before the city's bid to host the 2014 Games would be voted upon. Which hardly constitutes Olympic-style bribery, but it might have helped influence those member associations who were undecided.
Now, however, with the Games secured, the city is silencing any cynics by hosting the conference again, on Thursday and Friday, during what is an incredibly busy week for Commonwealth Games business in Glasgow, including the Commonwealth Sports Award
s on Thursday evening.
The conference has nothing to do with the Games and little to do with elite sport. It was first held to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland, and Jon Doig, chief executive of the CGCS, says the intention was always for Scotland to make a long-term and lasting commitment to sports development across the Commonwealth.
At the time, Louise Martin, then chair of the CGCS, explained that the aims were to promote sport as an instrument to change lives and foster social cohesion both at community level and internationally. It can be counted as another major contribution by Martin – recently appointed to the chair of sportscotland – to the Commonwealth Games movement, since she was also behind the inaugural Commonwealth Youth Games, staged in Edinburgh in 2000, Bendigo in 2004, with the third edition being held in Pune, India, later this year.
Enthusiasm for the second conference can be measured by the attendance. Among the 200 international delegates, 71 of the 72 CGAs will be represented, with only Kenya missing – a consequence of the African country's internal strife.
The theme is raising grass-roots participation and creating pathways to excellence both here in the UK and throughout the developing world, with speakers including Mike Fennell, president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, Stefan Howells of Sports Coaches' Outreach (SCORE) in South Africa, and Miriam Moyo, president of Zambia's National Olympic Committee.
Among the local projects taking part are the Scottish Rocks, who are trailblazers in this area. The Rocks' initiatives include 'Twilight Basketball', aimed at young people at risk, and run in disadvantaged areas on Friday and Saturday nights; and Jump2it, which sees the players visit primary schools, talk about smoking and addiction, the importance of nutrition and fitness, and then lead coaching sessions that culminate in a large multi-school basketball festival-style tournament. This scheme was piloted in 15 schools last year but received funding to expand it to 60 schools.
Trio up for honoursANOTHER Commonwealth Games-related event is on Thursday, when Glasgow's Lord Provost hosts the 27th Commonwealth Sports Awards Dinner, sponsored by the Clydesdale Bank.
It's the second time the event's been held in Glasgow, after 2003, when then First Minister Jack McConnell announced that Scotland would bid to host the 2014 Games.
Scots are nominated in three of the eight awards, with Chris Hoy fancied to be named Outstanding Male Athlete, and badminton representatives Anne Smillie and Mac Henderson up for the Sports Administrator of the Year and Lifetime Achievement categories.
Pitching for new talentONE of the current buzz-phrases is "talent transfer", and you can expect to keep hearing it in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics.
Failed footballers are the latest to be targeted by UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport, with Pitch2Podium – geddit? – aimed at the 1,000 recently released academy footballers, and giving them coaching in an alternative sport.
Chelsea Warr, UK Sport's Talent Identification lead, said: "Football is the largest hot-bed of athletic talent and many of these players leaving the professional game would already have developed the ready-made skills and abilities we'd be looking for."
Festival of cycling filmsTHERE now follows a shameless plug, which might veer dangerously close to constituting an abuse of this space. But here goes anyway. On Thursday the Filmhouse in Edinburgh will host the opening night of the Edinburgh Cycling Film Festival, a four-day event kicking off with an evening dedicated to Scotland's track cycling superstars, Chris Hoy, Graeme Obree and Craig MacLean.
As well as screening three films about the above, the event will help launch a new book, written by yours truly, entitled Heroes, Villains and Velodromes: Chris Hoy and Britain's Track Cycling Revolution.
As for the films – oh yes, the films. Well, there is the stunning short film Standing Start, which focuses on MacLean; the BBC's Just a Minute, which documents Hoy's trip to Bolivia last year; and Battle of the Bikes, which tells of Obree's rivalry with Chris Boardman in the 1990s.
Obree will be in the audience, and may take part in the post-films discussion. Tickets are available from the Filmhouse (tel 0131 228 2688).
The full article contains 807 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
