The Gold Coast, Australia has been awarded the 2018 Commonwealth Games, which they won over Hambantota, Sri Lanka.
The Gold Coast is a veteran host of many big-time sporting events, including as the home city of multiple professional sports leagues. The city also hosted the USA Swimming National Team in their pre-World Championships training camp after the earthquakes in Japan forced them to change their plans at the last minute.
As we examined when the two finalists were announced a year ago, this was the only intelligent decision that the selection committee could have made. Sri Lanka is still recovering from the devastating 2004 tsunamis, and while they had their chance to impress the judges with their hosting duties at this year’s Cricket World Cup, news reports say that this event left them roughly $23 million in debt. Those kind of figures do not encourage the validity of future events, especially one like the Commonwealth Games that require much more diverse sporting infrastructure than does the Cricket World Cup.
After the disastrous foray into Delhi, India, the Commonwealth Games Federation seems to have rethought their criteria for future events, choosing to instead focus on more developed areas. This will be the 5th time that Australia has hosted, which breaks a tie with Canada for the most hosting duties in the 21-event history of the Games.
The 2014 Commonwealth Games are slated for Glasgow, Scotland.
