COMMENT
Amid the fallout around Victoria’s withdrawal from the 2026 Commonwealth Games, a debate greater than the political one being held in the Victorian halls of power has sprung up around the nation - how much are the Olympics really worth to us, arguably the most sports-mad nation on earth?
What’s the point of it all?
Some Australians wonder openly what our obsession with sports is, insisting it is all mindless frivolity, and indeed the modern Olympics particularly since Athens 2004 has been decried as a senseless festival of gauche posturing, leaving wasted opportunity in its wake.
But it’s not for nothing - Melbourne in 1956 took the Olympics to the world and live television to Australians. Sydney in 2000 rang in the new millennium with the biggest party the world had ever seen.