South Africa Vs. Canada For Rights to Host 2022 Commonwealth Games

When the Monday deadline came and passed for bids to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games, only two cities had thrown their names into the hat: Durban, South Africa and Edmonton, Canada.

For Durban, the right to host, if won, would be the first time the event was hosted on the continent of Africa, despite several African countries being members of the Commonwealth of Nations. The city has its sporting focal point in the Golden Mile district and as one of the primary host cities of the 2010 World Cup of soccer with Moses Mabhida Stadium boasting a capacity of 62,760.

Its swimming experience is as the host of a FINA World Cup circuit stop from 2003-2009. Its primary swimming venue is in the Kings Park Sporting Precinct. The Kings Park Aquatic Center has a 50 meter pool plus an additional 26×33 meter pool, and is host to the KZN Aquatics Association: one of the country’s best-known swimming clubs. The pool has room for almost 5,000 spectators, which is just smaller than the temporary expansion to the Tollcross Aquatic Center in Glasgow that will host the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Durban is also home to one of South Africa’s most famous modern-day athletes: swimmer Chad le Clos, who knocked off Michael Phelps in the 200 fly at the 2012 Olympic Games.

Canada, on the other hand, has hosted the Commonwealth Games 4 times already in its history, and Edmonton itself hosted in 1978. The history lies in that the 1978 games were the first referred to as the “Commonwealth Games,” dropping the word ‘British’ from its name as the British empire began to drift away in the late 70’s.

Those games were almost-universally viewed as an incredible success. The 1474 athletes participating were greater than any edition of this event before after the participation levels actually receded in 1974; and in terms of legacy, many of those venues from the 1978 Games are still in prevalent use. That includes the Kingsmen Aquatic Centre that has four pools and hosted the 2013 CanAm Championships.

Both are large cities with the infrastructure to handle such an influx of visitors: Durban is the busiest port in South Africa and has 3.5 million people, and Edmonton is having unprecedented growth, driven by the domestic energy industry, and is likely now pushing 1 million residents. With 6,700 athletes participating in 2010 in India, and even more expected in 2014 and 2018, the participation figures are exploding, but either city should be able to adapt.

Edmonton officials have told the local media today that they expect approximately a $1 billion investment to prepare for the games – which sounds like a significant sum to most of us, but is relatively minor when compared to, for example, hosting an Olympic Games (London spent approximately $14 billion).

They were swayed to make the bid when they looked at the model created by the Gold Coast, Australia, hosts of the 2018 games. The Gold Coast is hosting without using any federal funds – taking public funds only from state and municipal governments. This was tempting enough to elicit a bid.

Our hunch is that the event will wind up in South Africa – a country on a continent that has never hosted the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games, and a country in which there’s been a huge push to host these major events in recent years.

That is our hunch politically speaking, though in terms of logistics and actual ability to host, there is still much to be decided once bids are released publicly.

A full history of Commonwealth Games hosts is below, courtesy Wikipedia.

Edition	Year	Host City	Host Nation	Start Date	End Date	Sports	Events	Nations	Competitors	Winning Team
British Empire Games
Inter-Empire Games	1911	London	England	12 May	June?	4	9	4	?	Canada
I	1930	Hamilton	Canada	16 August	23 August	6	59	11	400	England
II	1934	London	England	4 August	11 August	6	68	16	500	England
III	1938	Sydney	Australia	5 February	12 February	7	71	15	464	Australia
IV	1950	Auckland	New Zealand	4 February	11 February	9	88	12	590	Australia
British Empire and Commonwealth Games
V	1954	Vancouver	Canada	30 July	7 August	9	91	24	662	England
VI	1958	Cardiff	Wales	18 July	26 July	9	94	36	1122	England
VII	1962	Perth	Australia	22 November	1 December	9	104	35	863	Australia
VIII	1966	Kingston	Jamaica	4 August	13 August	9	110	34	1050	England
British Commonwealth Games
IX	1970	Edinburgh	Scotland	16 July	25 July	9	121	42	1383	Australia
X	1974	Christchurch	New Zealand	24 January	2 February	9	121	38	1276	Australia
Commonwealth Games
XI	1978	Edmonton	Canada	3 August	12 August	10	128	46	1474	Canada
XII	1982	Brisbane	Australia	30 September	9 October	10	142	46	1583	Australia
XIII	1986	Edinburgh	Scotland	24 July	2 August	10	163	26	1662	England
XIV	1990	Auckland	New Zealand	24 January	3 February	10	204	55	2073	Australia
XV	1994	Victoria	Canada	18 August	28 August	10	217	63	2557	Australia
XVI	1998	Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia	11 September	21 September	15	213	70	3633	Australia
XVII	2002	Manchester	England	25 July	4 August	17¹	281	72	3679	Australia
XVIII	2006	Melbourne	Australia	15 March	26 March	16²	245	71	4049	Australia
XIX	2010	Delhi	India	3 October	14 October	17³	272	71	6700	Australia
XX	2014	Glasgow	Scotland	23 July	3 August	17⁴	261	70
XXI	2018	Gold Coast	Australia	4 April	15 April
XXII	2022	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA