Athletics: Perfect antidote to delusions of grandeur

It took the wonderful, lumbering, cavorting celebrations of Lorraine Shaw to remind the sceptics of the significance of the Commonwealth Games. Shaw won the first track-and-field gold of the meeting at sundown on the opening day, reacting to the greatest triumph of her sporting career by sprinting across the track to embrace her coach and embarking on a victory lap which threatened to postpone one of the heats of the women's 400m until breakfast.

Three aspects of the little cameo reflected the nature of these Games. One was that the crowd, who had applauded the girls from the first hammer throw in qualification to the final fling, fully identified with the characters and intensity of the competition set before them; another was that Shaw felt comfortable enough in the sporting nature of the competition to launch herself at terrifying velocity into the arms of her defeated rival, Bronwyn Eagles of Australia; and the third was that, waiting on the starting blocks with every right to be irritated by the distractions on the track ahead, the runners in the 400m smiled broadly in acknowledgment of Shaw's spontaneous combustion.

Cold statistics state that Shaw won the gold with a throw of 66.83 metres, a Commonwealth Games record, and that the world record, set by Mihaela Melinte of Romania three years ago, is half a cricket- pitch length further on. But the crowd were too busy appreciating what they were seeing to be unduly concerned about what was in the history books, which is the key to a thorough and uncomplicated enjoyment of these Games.

"The atmosphere is so different out there," said the 34-year-old gold medallist later in her West Country burr. "I've never known a crowd get into it like that before and the competition is not like the Olympics and the World Championships. There's money up for grabs in those, in't there." And off she went, muttering about a headache and needing to chill out, while Eagles said she was so happy for the new champion, who had endured such a difficult year, and meant every word.

The Games have the charm of a school sports day. You half expect mothers to be serving tea and cake from a stall in the corner of the stadium and for the schedule to include a father's race. But it is no bad thing, when the climax of the opening ceremony has been hijacked for commercial ends by a brand of sportswear, to be reminded of why we liked sport in the first place.

The confusion in the ranks of the sports media has been comical. While one newspaper has dispatched an Olympian-sized team of reporters into the field, several others have tried vainly to ignore the whole spectacle. But more harm can be done to the concept of the Games by those boosters who overestimate its importance than by the cynical tendency who justifiably point to the shortage of world-class competition.

Only a handful of athletes here will have a realistic chance of winning a medal in Athens. But that is not the point of the exercise. The Commonwealth Games has survived against all the odds precisely because it is not the Olympics, and precisely because the Olympics has become such a tanker of an event that a whole athletic heritage has been cast adrift in the wash. The least commercial of the major Games has therefore found a neat little specialised niche in the market.

Simon Clegg, the chief executive of the British Olympic Association, is right when he says that a good Games will go some way towards restoring a national reputation almost irreparably damaged by the fiasco over Wembley Stadium and the abortive attempt to host the 2005 World Athletic Championships. But to use these Games as a platform for the launch of a coherent and realistically costed bid for the 2012 Olympics would be like organising the local five-a-side tournament and then pitching for the World Cup.

The simple truth is that, for all Britain's impressive haul of medals in Sydney, in terms of its organisation and funding, of its political and social importance, sport in the UK is Commonwealth not Olympic class. So organising a successful Commonwealth Games should represent the height of our ambitions. Any other delusions of grandeur will only lead to further humiliation.

All the evidence so far suggests that Manchester, with the help of a large contingent of Australians, it has to be said, will confound the sceptics by hosting a memorable Games. Besides Shaw's joyful gold, the 10,000m produced a stunning finish between the trio of Kenyans and the lone Tanzanian. Less well publicised was the performance of Billi Paea and Afele Leona, who in the space of half an hour reduced the national 100m record of the tiny South Pacific coral island of Niue first to 11.41 then to 11.36 seconds. That neither man qualified for the second round of the competition seemed entirely incidental. Like the spectators, the islanders will return with memories of what they have, not what they missed.