The Commonwealth Games: The First 60 Years: 1930-1990

Ronald R. Wallingford is a professor in the School of Human Movement at
Laurentian University.

Canada launched the first British Empire Games in 1930. When racial
tension in Johannesburg, the next site for the Games, threatened to
scuttle the infant movement, Canadians agitated to relocate in London.
Cleve Dheensaw describes how former colonies like Canada kept the
disparate factions of this athletic celebration together. He establishes
the backdrop for each of the Games by interspersing descriptions of the
host city’s administrative tribulations with descriptions of the vying
nations’ highly touted performers. A chronological listing of gold
medalists in all disciplines follows the chapter on the 1990 Games.

Older fans will relish reflecting on the highlights of yesteryear.
Athletes might well gain a sense of tradition, so easily overlooked in
the mayhem of modern sport. Games historians will have another framework
with which to cross-reference their works. Sport connoisseurs will
appreciate having 60 years of results in one handy paperback.

There are shortcomings: a 22-yard margin of victory does not leave the
second-place finisher in a mile run 11.9 seconds behind; sprinters never
ran 110-yard races. And there are lapses in judgment. When discussing
the sprinter Ben Johnson, for example, Dheensaw states, “But his
handlers were none too bright, allowing him to get nabbed twice for drug
use at a time when only the very careless or the very stupid got
caught.” Was Johnson’s greatest error in getting caught?

Criticisms aside, The Commonwealth Games preserves an important part of
Canadian sporting culture.