Razeen Gutta
Birmingham 2022, dubbed the Commonwealth “Games for Everyone”, came to a close on Monday evening with Team South Africa leaving the UK with 27 medals.
The likes of UB40 and Ozzy Osbourne – two local legends – serenaded the crowd at the Alexander Stadium as the closing ceremony celebrated the competition’s achievements.
Organising committee chair John Crabtree addressed the crowd, calling Birmingham a “truly global and international city” and said that the Games were “for everyone”.
A total of 877 medals were awarded during the course of the competition, with 97 Games records and four world records broken.
Team Nigeria topped Africa’s rankings, finishing seventh overall with 12 gold medals in their best performance to date. Nine silvers and 14 bronzes were added to the golds as they finished with 35 medals overall.
South Africa’s seven golds, nine silvers and 11 bronze medals helped them to a ninth place finish in what was their worst finish at the Games since 1994.
Teenage swimmers Lara van Niekerk and Pieter Coetzé were the highlights of Team SA’s performance, with the pair collecting three golds, a silver and a bronze between them.
Chef de Mission for Team SA, Lwandile Simelane, remained positive about the country’s achievements, calling the effort an encouraging one.
“I think every single athlete dug deep. I’m extremely proud of the ones that have earned medals. We took a couple of knocks with some Covid withdrawals but it’s great to still be strong in the medals table despite all of that,” Simelane said.
“A lot of people will look at it as down but for us, it’s actually quite encouraging, the different collection of sports codes that have actually contributed towards the medal table this time around – boxing coming in, judo and cycling. It’s quite an exciting prospect to see how many sports are actually working on being medal contributors for the nation.”
Video source: @birminghamcg22
Image source: @jtoneysbeat
