Since the second world war nearly every Olympic Games has seen athletes seeking asylum in the Games host country.
The familiar images of high-rise development, looking north here from Surfers Paradise, tell only one part of the story of the Gold Coast.
Andrew Leach
Behind the built-up glitz of Surfers Paradise lies a deep history that has been written and overwritten in successive layers that have become thinner and thinner as time goes on.
Not so “ladylike” – the netball rivalry between Australian and New Zealand will continue at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Ross Setford/AAP
Commonwealth Games netball is an intensely physical and competitive affair. It's a far cry from netball's roots – the game was designed to shape women into model middle-class citizens.
Fireworks go off at the opening ceremonies for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
The Commonwealth Games do not get the same level of media coverage as the Olympics. But a one-time Commonwealth gold medallist says the Games are still an important athletic competition.
The Commonwealth Games is often dubbed the ‘friendly games’, but its history shows that friendliness applies only to ‘the right sort of people’.
AAP
Preparations for next month’s Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast are pushing homeless people out of town, and out of the state. Sadly, that's not unusual for events of this sort.
The Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast will set the scene for a year of challenges for this grouping of nations.
AAP
We are so accustomed to hearing about American exceptionalism that British exceptionalism is rarely discussed.
Local residents holding Chinese and Olympic flags attend a rehearsal in Chongli county of Zhangjiakou ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Reuters/Jason Lee
Sporting extravaganzas are a way for globalising cities in emerging market economies to try and play the "modernity game". But they don't make the rules, and so they can never "win".
The Gold Coast is preparing to host the 2018 edition of the Commonwealth Games.
AAP
Richard Nicholson has experienced first hand the evolution of the Paralympics, and with it, the shift in perception of disabilities and para-athletes.
Cathy Freeman was criticised for flying the Aboriginal flag at the 1994 Commonwealth Games but the same act at the Sydney 2000 Olympics was hailed as a moment of reconciliation.
Reuters/Jerry Lampen
Athletes are increasingly expected to be good role models. But we don’t usually expect them to sacrifice their chance of winning to help others.
Seabelo Senatla of South Africa scores a try against New Zealand during the gold medal match of the Rugby Sevens at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Reuters/Russell Cheyne
By investing in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, South Africa sacrifices investment in pressing societal needs. Instead, the country should be mobilised around the national goal of fixing schooling.
Leaders at the last Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November 2013. Malta will host the next one in November 2015.
Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte
The Commonwealth is politically fraught, with widely divergent members. But, instead of unravelling as some critics wish, it has instead inspired copycats and appears set to grow and endure.
If they want to get kids on the pitch, Plaid will have to address inequalities.
joncandy/Flickr
r all of India’s cricketing passion, economic strength and for that matter its population size, the country is arguably the world’s most under-achieving sporting nation.
The 2014 Commonwealth Games have been praised for integrating the para-sports programme into the main schedule and including the medals in the tally of each nation. The London Olympics in 2012 told a similar…
Jubilation in 2011 after the Gold Coast scored the 2018 Commonwealth Games … but will they be worth it?
AAP/Patrick Hamilton
Goodbye Glasgow and hello Gold Coast. The Commonwealth Games will return Down Under in 2018 and already there are bold projections: Gold Coast Games Federation chair Nigel Chamier expects the creation…
The legacy of the 2014 Commonwealth Games will be a grey area for years to come.
Daniel0685/Flickr
The 20th Commonwealth Games have come and gone. Glasgow has demonstrated that it can successfully deliver a large-scale, global, multi-sport and cultural event. It can fill the stadia, shuttle people around…
Professor of Social Inclusion - UTS Business School - Centres for Business and Social innovation, and Business Intelligence and Data Analytics, University of Technology Sydney