Comm Games baton twist, and who will lead the Aussies in
As two Australians prepare to lead their team in the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in Glasgow, find out which Aussie cyclist is most likely to “smash” his former team member who jumped ship for Britain.
Source: AAP
In-form pole vaulter Nina Kennedy and para-swimming star Tim Hodge will have key roles for Australia at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony later on Thursday.
Kennedy will carry the flag and Hodge will be the baton bearer when the team marches out on Thursday night (early Friday morning AEST) at Glasgow’s Hydro indoor arena.
While Kennedy will be the 24th Australian to carry the flag at a Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, the baton bearer is a new honour.
Rather than a single King’s baton, for the first time all 74 countries and territories were given their own to decorate and bring to the opening ceremony.
The King started the main Scotland baton relay in March last year. It contains the full message he will read at the opening ceremony, while other batons each contain one word from his message.
Kennedy and Hodge won gold medals four years ago at the Birmingham Games and remain at the peak of their sports.
Australian flag bearer Nina Kennedy is seeking to win back-to-back Commonwealth Games gold medals. Photo: AAP
After winning pole vault gold at the Paris Olympics, Kennedy took an extended break because of a hamstring injury.
But she showed only last week that she will be one of the top competitors in Glasgow, breaking the Australian record with her 4.95-metre vault to win the Monaco Diamond League.
Her personal-best vault was the fifth-highest in history by a woman. It was also the highest jump in the women’s event in five years.
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“I’ve had a long road with injuries to get back to this point, so to be trusted with this now, on top of everything else so far this season, means more than I can really put into words,” Kennedy said.
“My final isn’t until later in the week, so I will get a bit of a sleep-in the morning after.
“I’ve worked with our team to make sure I’m as prepared as I can be, and there’s no version of the Games where I’d miss the chance to carry that flag.”
It will be Kennedy’s third Commonwealth Games. She won bronze on the Gold Coast in 2018.
Hodge, likewise, is a decorated two-time Commonwealth Games star, winning two silver medals on the Gold Coast and then gold at Birmingham in the S9 100-metres backstroke.
He won the 200-metre individual medley SM9 at the Paris Paralympics and was also a member of the victorious mixed 4×100-metre medley relay 34 points team.
Hodge has won two world titles and holds the world record for the S9 200-metre individual medley.
Para-swimmer Tim Hodge will carry the Australian baton at the Thursday’s opening ceremony. Photo: AAP
“I’ve watched the team come into the stadium both times and felt so much pride watching the green and gold walking in,” Hodge said.
“To now have that role myself, to have it happen in Glasgow of all places, the same city where I made my international debut, means the Games already feel special.
“It’s the first time that I’ll march too, I’m usually competing first day. I can’t wait to feel the excitement.”
Australian team chef de mission Petria Thomas said Kennedy and Hodge richly deserved their honours.
“It was such a pleasure to ask Nina and Tim to take on these roles … they provide real leadership within their sports and more broadly across the team,” she said.
“Each of them has longevity, character and humility, and the support of the whole Australian sporting community behind them.”
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Defector stokes ex-teammate’s fire
Former Australian-turned-Briton Matt Richardson may have become public enemy No.1 in Australian cycling when he decamped to ride for the country of his birth — but the Commonwealth’s fastest man on two wheels reckons it’s all had “zero effect” on him.
And if the flyer now in Team England colours thinks there’s any lingering animosity towards him, having won two titles in the green-and-gold at the last Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, he promises to just use it as “fuel” for more success.
The 27-year-old was born in the English town of Maidstone but moved to Perth at nine and went on to carve out a brilliant track career for Australia. He caused a sensation by switching allegiance straight after winning two silvers and a bronze at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
He received a life ban for competing for Australia. But despite early bitter criticism Australia, Richardson has since carved out a strikingly impressive career in GB and England skinsuits.
“I tried to block out all the negativity, and all the noise,” he said when recalling the initial furore surrounding his “defection”.
“I experienced the way they decided to handle it at the time, and moved on as quickly as I could.
“Ultimately, it has zero effect on me. If, for some reason, the British public didn’t take it well, that wouldn’t have been very good — but it wasn’t the case.”
Richardson is still battling to be the top sprinter in the world. He won silver at last year’s worlds behind only the great Harrie Lavreysen and achieved the previously unthinkable, defeating the flying Dutchman in the sprint at February’s European Championships
He’s twice cracked the flying 200-metre world record, becoming the first cyclist under nine seconds, and has made it clear he believes his advances have been down to his recent cycling education in Britain.
As he famously put it in an interview with the BBC – and a mite woundingly for his old paymasters: “A way I can probably describe it is the Australian program is like high school, and the British program is like Hogwarts.”
“We fly with more bikes, and more equipment, anything we need to perform at our absolute best at a given race,” Richardson said.
“I remember doing World Cups for Australia, and I would only fly over with my race bike. I fly to races now with about four or five bikes. These things really make a difference, when a final comes down to a thousandth of a second.”
Richardson’s main rival in Glasgow could be former Australian teammate Leigh Hoffman. He has admitted his old mate’s presence in the England team spices things up for the track meet at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.
“The Aussies want me to smash him, the Brits want him to smash me and that’s the way it goes,” Hoffman said at the team announcement in Brisbane.
“Seeing him in GB colours probably does bring out a bit more fire in me.”
That’s all grist to Richardson’s mill.
“I use it as fuel,” he said. “I always find motivation in something, whether it’s trying to hunt someone down, trying to be better than someone, or trying to stay better than other people.”
One potential advantage for Hoffman is that Richardson will be in Japan racing. He has to rush to get to Glasgow so close to race day that he’s not even sure which of the four sprint disciplines he’ll yet compete in.
“If I was to race in the team sprint, I’d fly in on the day and literally go straight to the velodrome and race,” he said, admitting it still might be possible to do the team sprint, sprint, keirin and kilo.
—AAP
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