EXACTLY one year ago, the first medals of Scotland’s greatest-ever sporting event were being won. From Ross Murdoch to Hannah Miley to the Renicks sisters, day one of Glasgow 2014 produced some of the Commonwealth Games’ most memorable moments. But 12 months on, the talk is of the legacy, or lack thereof.
Glasgow 2014 was built around the concept of legacy. We were promised that as a result of these Games coming to Scotland, the deprived east end of Glasgow would be regenerated.
Sporting organisations would be fighting to bring their events to Scotland once they saw the success of the Games and activity levels all across the country would sky-rocket as a result of people watching athletes win medals in front of our own eyes.
The idea of legacy is a strange thing, though. Anyone who thought that the Commonwealth Games would solve Scotland’s plethora of social problems was living in cloud cuckoo land. If decades worth of politicians have failed to resolve the inequality issues in Glasgow or increase sporting activity among Scotland’s population then you can be sure that one single sporting event is not going to wholeheartedly solve these problems either.
Yet we retained hope that when the Commonwealth Games departed, a better Scotland would be left in their wake.
Why, though, is it only sporting events that we expect to leave a legacy? When the MTV Music Awards came to Glasgow last November, we did not expect it to spawn a Scottish Rihanna or a new generation of pop stars.
When the Jack Vettriano exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery ended a record-breaking run last year, we did not expect to see a surge in the number of Hornels and Guthries. Yet we expect a significant impact on society from a sporting event.
Having said all of this about the improbability of Glasgow 2014 leaving a legacy, I was one of those who championed the idea that the Commonwealth Games could change Scots' attitudes towards sport and physical activity.
I believed there would be children in Scotland watching the Games thinking, ‘I can do that’ and elite athletes a decade from now would cite Glasgow 2014 as their inspiration. And that there would be children who saw sports at the Games that they did not even know existed and when they tried that sport for themselves, they would realise that there is a discipline out there for them.
But reports in this very newspaper in the last week or so have claimed that the legacy that was promised has not quite materialised to the extent we had all hoped. Activity levels have not gone through the roof, opportunities for all in the east end of Glasgow have not been created and there are some who say hosting the Commonwealth Games has done nothing, long-term, for Scotland.
This may, in some cases, be true. But every person who has bemoaned the lack of legacy left by the Games must ask themselves what they personally did to ensure that Glasgow 2014 sparked a change? If everyone who has criticised the absence of a legacy had given up an hour or two to help at a sports club in the last year, there would be more children doing sport more often.
If every person who has castigated the government for spending millions of pounds on a souped-up school sports day got off their couch and did more exercise, as well as encouraging those around them to join in, then this country would be a healthier place already.
Last week, I reported on the IPC Swimming World Championships at Tollcross International Swimming Centre. This event came to Glasgow as a direct result of the success of the Commonwealth Games. The standard was high –one of British para-sport’s most recognisable athletes, Ellie Simmonds, was competing, as was Scotland’s top para-swimmer, Andrew Mullen. Yet the size of the crowd was poor. The 3500 capacity stadium was less than half full. It was incredibly disappointing to see, particularly when you consider that para-sports were so phenomenally well received at Glasgow 2014.
But this is why there is not as great a legacy as we had all hoped. For there to be a Commonwealth Games legacy, each and every one of us must contribute to it. We cannot sit back and wait for a legacy to happen around us and then complain when it does not materialise.
Legacies are not made by huge, grand gestures, rather, they are made by every single person playing their part, however tiny. We may be a year on from Glasgow 2014 but that is not too late.
If everyone who wants the Games to leave a legacy gives an hour of their time to a sports club or buys a ticket to a sporting event or does a little bit more exercise, then that is how legacies are built. And that is how Scotland will see a benefit from the Commonwealth Games.
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