Funday Times

The recently concluded 18th Commonwealth Games attracted over 4,500 athletes from 71 countries. The Games were held in Melbourne from March 15 to 26. The host country Australia, released three stamps to mark the occasion. The colourful graphic designs featured images of athletes - a runner on the starting blocks, a cyclist and a netballer. A victorious athlete astride a map of the world with the focus on Melbourne was featured in the miniature sheet.

Australia created a new medals record for the Games by collecting 84 gold medals, 69 silver and 69 bronze adding up to 221. England was second with a tally of 110 (30 gold, 40 silver and 34 bronze) followed by Canada with 86 (26 gold, 29 silver and 31 bronze) and India with 50 (22 gold, 17 silver and 11 bronze). Sri Lanka was placed 22nd in the list getting just one medal - the Gold for weight lifting in the 62 kg class. The solitary medal was won by the 26-year old Chinthana Vidanage, a lad from a village off Polonnaruwa who beat India's Arun Murugesan. This is the first time that Sri Lanka won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games after 55 years. Earlier, the legendary Duncan White brought home a gold by winning the 100-metre hurdles at the 1950 Games. At the 1950 Games, boxers from Sri Lanka won three medals - two silvers by K. Edwin (Flyweight-men) and Albert Perera (Bantamweight-men) and one bronze by Alex Obeysekera (Welterweight-men). The next time Sri Lanka won was at the 1998 Games held in Kuala Lumpur when two medals - a silver and a bronze were won.

The Commonwealth Games was first held in 1930 and was then known as the Empire Games being the era of the British Empire. The name changed to British Commonwealth Games in 1954 and to the present name -Commonwealth Games - in 1970. With 71 countries now in the Commonwealth today, all countries participated this year.

The first Empire Games was held in 1930 at Hamilton, Canada with just 11 countries participating in six games. England led the medals table with 61 medals and repeated it in the next Games in 1934 with 73 medals when 16 countries took part in the Games held in London. One more sport was added for the next Games in 1938 in Sydney, Australia when the host country won 65 medals. Sri Lanka participated for the first time. The next Games held in Auckland, New Zealand in 1950 attracted 12 countries for nine sports. Australia won 80 medals.

The Games have been held once every four years without a break from 1954. Since then most of the medals table had been led by England, Australia and Canada. The number of sports increased from nine in 1954 to 17 by 2002 and the number of countries from 24 to 72.

This year 245 medal events were contested with a total of 1334 medals handed out to athletes - 441 gold, 441 silver and 352 bronze. The gold for the medals was sourced from the Ballarat region located north-west of Melbourne emphasizing the importance the goldfields have played in Victoria's gold-mining history.

For the first time India will host the next Games in 2010 and the chosen city is New Delhi, India's capital. New Delhi won defeating Canada's candidate city, Hamilton at the Commonwealth Games Federation General Assembly in November 2003. The Games are likely to be held in October/November 2010. This will be the second time that an Asian country will host the Games. The first was in 1998 when the Games were held in Kuala Lumpur.