Commonwealth Games - Host Cities Quiz

Answer: Brisbane (Australia)

Matilda was built on a forklift, so that "her" six tonnes could be moved around. "Her" height was just over 13 metres (43 feet), forming quite an imposing figure during the opening ceremony. As part of the ceremony, a number of children dressed as baby kangaroos jumped out of a door in Matilda's pouch, and proceeded to put on a trampolining display.

The Commonwealth Games traditionally include the sports with which many will be familiar from the Olympic Games, as well as some that are more linked with the colonial past of the tradition, such as lawn bowls. In 1982, Australian Rules football and table tennis were demonstration sports, and archery was introduced as an optional sport (one that may be included if the host nation wishes to do so). Altogether, 1583 athletes representing 46 Commonwealth regions (not all separate nations - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all compete individually, for example, as well as a number of overseas territories) participated. The final table for team accomplishment saw Australia listed at the top, even though they only won 207 medals, and England won 208. This is because the standings are sorted first by the number of gold medals won, then by silver medals, then by bronze, then by total, then alphabetically. Australia won 39 gold medals, and England 38.

Answer: Edinburgh (Scotland)

The theme for the opening ceremony was "Spirit of Youth", and it featured thousands of schoolchildren performing a coordinated gymnastics routine. Before that display, several hundred children ran from Edinburgh Castle down the Royal Mile and through Holyrood Park to reach the stadium inside which the rest of the ceremony occurred.

These games were marred by a boycott from many nations in protest against the UK government's policy of maintaining sporting ties with South Africa, at a time when most nations had imposed a sporting boycott on that nation due to its apartheid policy. Only 22 of the 59 countries who were eligible to compete did so, with most African, Asian and Caribbean countries choosing to stay away. Scotland came fifth on the medal table, with England on top.

Answer: Auckland (New Zealand)

The opening ceremony was a mixture of Mâori traditions and military display. Prince Edward (as the monarch's representative) was greeted with a traditional challenge of welcome (a Mâori placing a wooded stick in the ground, which the Prince picked up to indicate that he came in peace. Then came a 24-gun salute, and a military honour guard review before the athletes entered. Once they had arrived, there was a song of welcome, followed by a description and re-enactment of the traditional story of how the islands of New Zealand formed, followed by the arrival of European settlers, including the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, then the arrival of people from other countries of Europe, Asia and the Pacific islands. The closing fireworks were followed by military jets flying over the stadium.

Four new countries joined in for their first time at these games: British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Nauru and Seychelles. None of them won any medals on debut. The triathlon was a demonstration event, and both the men's and women's events were won by New Zealanders. Overall, New Zealand placed fourth, with Australia on top of the table.

Answer: Victoria (Canada)

The opening ceremony also included a theatrical display from the Four Nations Tribes, leading up to a large Thunderbird symbol covering most of the stadium. The mascot, an anthropomorphic orca, was named Klee Wyck (Laughing One), a reference to the nickname given to Emily Carr, a Victoria-born artist and writer whose work focussed in large part on the indigenous people of the area.

Following the official end of the policy of apartheid in 1991, South Africa returned to participate in these games for the first time on over 30 years. Namibia, which had gained independence in 1990, made its first appearance, as did the Caribbean island of Montserrat. It was the final year of eligibility for Hong Kong, as it was transferred from UK control to Chinese control in 1997, before the next games. South Africa finished 12th on the medal table; Namibia's Frankie Fredericks was successful on the track, winning gold in the men's 200m and bronze in the 100m; Hong Kong signed off with four bronze medals.

Answer: Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

Standing over 450 m (1475 feet) high, with a connecting walkway between the two towers on the 41st and 42nd floors, these towers were completed in 1996 (or not until early 1998, depending on who you ask and how they define completed), although not officially opened until 1999. They featured regularly in television coverage of the games, as they were deemed (by some reckonings - let's leave that debate for another day) to be the world's highest building between 1998 and 2004. Their design includes a number of features reflecting the Islamic culture of Malaysia, including basing the cross section of the towers on a shape called 'Rub el Hizb' - picture two overlapping squares, with a circle at their common centre, and one rotated through 45 degrees. These games marked the first time they were held in a country where English was not the most commonly spoken language, and the first time they were held in an Asian country.

From a sports perspective, the Kuala Lumpur games were significant because they were the first to introduce team games - previously, all events were individual or pairs competitions, although some (such as gymnastics and cycling) did have a team event based on the performances of individuals. New sports included cricket, field hockey, rugby sevens and netball, as well as the individual sports of squash and ten-pin bowling. Sixty nine teams participated in the competition, with Australia finishing up on top of the table. Malaysia, who had their best medal tally ever to that time, came in 4th, with 10 gold medals, 14 silver and 12 bronze, for a total of 36.

Answer: Manchester (England)

This was the year of Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee, so the games came home. One of the traditions of the Commonwealth Games, since 1958, has been a relay (similar to the torch relay of the Olympic Games) in which a baton containing a message from the Queen starts at Buckingham Palace, and arrives at the host city in time for the opening ceremony, where it is opened and read, usually by someone representing the monarch. This time, she read her own message.

The 2002 games saw the extension of an earlier trial (in 1994) of including disabled events in a number of sports, run concurrently with the mainstream events, and with the medals counting for the national tallies. The disabled events were in the areas of swimming, athletics, lawn bowls, table tennis and weightlifting. Zimbabwe, participating in the last games before they withdrew from the Commonwealth in 2003, won one of their two medals with a silver medal in women's singles lawn bowls (blind) for Constance Sibanda. Despite plenty of local support, the England team only came second in the medal tally, behind Australia.

Answer: Melbourne (Australia)

Actually, these games were even bigger than the Olympics had been fifty years earlier. Over 4,000 athletes from 71 countries assembled at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the opening and closing ceremonies, the same location as had been used for that purpose in 1956 (but having had some significant facelifts in the meantime). Athletics events were also held there, with other venues around the city also being heavily used. A few events, notably basketball and mountain bike cycling, were held in regional centres. For the first time, the Queen's Baton actually visited every single one of the participating countries on its voyage, which covered over 180,000 km (about 110,000 miles).

The home nation topped the medal table, for the fifth consecutive time. Their total of 84 gold medals, 69 silver and 69 bronze gave them a total of 222 medals. England, in second place, had 36 gold, 40 silver and 34 bronze, for a total of 110. Once again, these totals included the medals won by disabled athletes, who competed in a selection of events in the sports of athletics, swimming, table tennis and weightlifting.

Answer: Delhi (India)

This was the first time the games were hosted by a Commonwealth Republic, a nation which remains part of the Commonwealth, but which does not recognise the UK monarch as their head of state. This is true for over half of the members of the Commonwealth. India chose to include the demonstration sport of Kabaddi, a team game in which players try to tag their opponents. It's a lot more skillful and rugged than that makes it sound! The game originated in India, where it is widely played (with regional variations), and it is the national sport of Bangladesh. There was no triathlon competition, because no suitable spot could be found for the swimming leg. Basketball was also removed, but archery made its second-ever appearance. Tennis and wrestling also returned to the games, but (somewhat surprisingly, considering the sport's popularity on the subcontinent) cricket did not, due to disagreement over whether to use a Twenty20 format or a 50-over ODI format.

The host nation finished second in the medal table, their highest placing to that time, with Australia on top once again. Of the 71 teams competing in Delhi, 36 won at least one medal and 23 won at least one gold medal. This included gold medal performances for the very first time from Botswana (athletics - women's 400m), the Cayman Islands (athletics - women's 200m) and Samoa (3 medals in weightlifting).

Answer: Glasgow (Scotland)

The mascot for the games was an anthropomorphic thistle named Clyde, who proved so popular that Clyde has been proposed as the official mascot of the city of Glasgow. These games saw the number of disabled events increased to 22 events in five sports, with para track cycling being added to those from previous games. Triathlon returned to the list of sports, and a new event of mixed relay triathlon was added. Women's boxing made its first appearance at a Commonwealth Games, and judo and mountain biking returned to the program, but synchronised swimming, Greco-Roman wrestling, archery and tennis were all dropped.

The games were very successful for UK teams, with England finishing on top of the medal table, and Wales and Scotland both collecting their largest (to that time) numbers both for gold medals and for their medal total. Participating for the fifth time, Kiribati won their first ever medal, with David Katoatau winning gold in the 105 kg division of men's weightlifting.

Answer: Gold Coast (Australia)

Gold Coast, located about 60 km (45 miles) south of Brisbane, is a major tourist centre, for its beaches, for the many theme parks in the vicinity, and for its nightlife. Although Gold Coast was the host city, a few events were held elsewhere: track cycling and shooting in Brisbane, and some of the basketball in Cairns and Townsville, both around 1500 km (1000 miles) away in the north of Queensland.

This was the first edition of the Commonwealth Games to have as many events for women as it did for men, and had the largest number of para-athletes to that time: 300 of them competed in 38 events across nine sports, including EAD (Elite Athletes with a Disability) events in triathlon. The program of sports included two other new events, beach volleyball and women's rugby sevens.

The host nation surged back to the top of the medal table, with 80 gold medals in their total of 198 medals. England finished second, and India third. Five teams each won a medal for the first time: British Virgin Islands, Cook Islands, Dominica, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

The opening and closing ceremonies for these games were both the subject of much discussion. In most Commonwealth Games, the host country comes last, and the country that hosted the previous edition comes first in the opening parade of athletes into the stadium, with the rest of the countries in alphabetical order. Following the order that had been used in Melbourne, the countries did not enter in strict alphabetical order, but alphabetically within their geographic region, starting with Europe and finishing with Oceania. Critics disliked the break with tradition, supporters liked the natural flow, since Scotland was followed by the rest of Europe, and Australia was preceded by its neighbours. The closing ceremony, however, was almost universally condemned for the decision to have the athletes enter and be seated before the start of the ceremony. This meant that their entry was not televised, and many were disappointed not to see the jubilant athletes partying their way into the stadium.