Gold Coast gives Birmingham the blueprint for hosting a vibrant Commonwealth Games

Birmingham has a lot to live up to. It may not have the surf nor the sunshine, but it has something much more valuable: the perfect blueprint

Fireworks during the closing ceremony of the Games (PA)

We should be so lucky, as Kylie once sort-of said. And we were. Stretching from Surfers Paradise to the beach volleyball courts of Coolangatta, the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games are destined to go down as one of the greats.

It was hard, amid the crashing cobalt surf and the searing sunshine, the spilling late-night bars of Broadbeach, the bright and pristine sporting venues, to reconcile the notion that these are a Games whose relevance on the modern sporting calendar is increasingly questioned.

Ten thousand miles away on dark and drizzly days back home, it is all too easy to dismiss as irrelevant or anachronistic all sport which does not fulfil the dumb prescription of ranting football bosses or mindless jingoism.

Even when escaping the suffocating blanket of top-flight football, the insatiable insistence on spread-sheeting success has created an unhealthy, win-at-all-costs culture which pays scant heed to the fundamental purpose of world-class sport.

Superstars are all well and good, but if they come pre-packaged in PR spin, cellophaned off from the real lives of those who wish to see them as such, then one can hardly hope for future generations to aspire to follow in their footsteps.

Apart from Usain Bolt, parachuted in for a pair of back-to-back press conferences and to play a short cameo role as a DJ at the closing ceremony, genuine global stars were hard to find at the Gold Coast Games.

Home hero Sally Pearson limped out before the first day’s surf rolled in. Olympic champions like Max Whitlock and Adam Peaty were upstaged by others. They were fitting developments for a Games which has always breathed life into the underdog.

The names of the real stars of the Gold Coast would mean little if they were listed here. They were stars in their own right, here to pursue personal goals, not those which cynically box-tick broader pictures like the interminable medals tables or funding cycles.

The netball team won England’s final gold (Getty)

There was a 19-year-old from Norfolk Island, Shae Wilson, who took up lawn bowls four years ago and whom since, having known little more than her remote homeland, has been afforded the opportunity to see the world.

There was a beach volleyball team from Vanuatu who dealt a major scare to the seemingly invincible home nation, and a 10,000 metres runner from Lesotho who finished two laps behind everybody else but was greeted at the finish line by three members of the Australian team.

The home nations may have been shorn of the biggest names, but they still found place to excel. England’s boxers led the way with an historic nine-medal haul, including six golds, masking relative disappointment on the track in particular.

Tom Daley won gold in the pool (EPA)

Scottish successes encapsulated the Games’ uniqueness: on the one hand, the audacious diving of 21-year-old Grace Reid; on the other, the steely nerves of Alex ‘Tattie’ Marshall, who won an historic fifth Games gold medal on the lawn bowls green.

Elinor Barker led the way for Wales in the women’s points race, while Northern Ireland’s only gold proved one of the most unexpected of the Games, as 18-year-old Rhys McClenaghan out-shone Whitlock and proposed a new gymnastics dawn.

Away from the sport, the Gold Coast Games admirably did not shy away from controversy. In staging ceremonies heavily influenced by the region’s Aboriginal history, it sought to restore ongoing issues to centre stage.

Diver Tom Daley used his media duties after winning his fourth Games title with his partner Dan Goodfellow to implore the Commonwealth Games Federation to do more to pressurise those 37 out of 53 nations of the Commonwealth where homosexuality remains illegal.

Birmingham has a lot to live up to. It may not have the surf nor the sunshine, but it has something much more valuable: the perfect blueprint for how to preserve the Commonwealth Games for what it is today thanks to these glorious 11 days on the Gold Coast: more relevant, more essential, more vibrant than ever before.