New Commonwealth Games core sports plan will help give "greater stability" claims Grevemberg

A plan to introduce a list of 16 core sports will help make the Commonwealth Games more sustainable, it has been claimed here today.

The proposal by David Grevemberg, chief executive of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), would see the number of sports a host city must stage raise from 10.

Currently a city include a minimum of 10 core sports on their programme: Aquatics (swimming) athletics, badminton, boxing for men with an option to add women's events, hockey for men and women, lawn bowls, netball for women, rugby sevens for men with an option to add women's, squash, swimming and weightlifting.

They can then choose an additional seven from a list which includes archery, basketball, cycling, judo, sailing, tenpin bowling, triathlon and wrestling.

Under the new plans, to be voted on at the CGF General Assembly here on Wednesday (September 2), the sport programme will consist of the following compulsory sports and disciplines: Aquatics (swimming and Para swimming), athletics, including Para, badminton, cycling (road), boxing, artistic gymnastics, hockey, judo, lawn bowls, including Para, netball, rugby sevens, squash, table tennis, triathlon, weightlifting, Para powerlifting and freestyle wrestling.

They could then choose as many sports as they wanted from a list of archery recurve,diving, basketball, including 3x3 and wheelchair 3x3, Twenty20 cricket, mountain biking, track cycling, track Para cycling, rhythmic gymnastic, shooting, including clay target, full bore, clay target, pistol and small bore, Para table tennis, Para triathlon and beach volleyball.

The number of athletes in the sports they choose, however, must not exceed 500 as the CGF all plans to introduce a new quota system of 4,500 competitors, with a total of between 3,800 and 4,000 distributed among the core sports.

Usain Bolt competed in the 4x100 metres relay at Glasgow 2014 but Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive David Grevemberg wants top athletes to feel more of a connection with the event ©Getty Images

Grevemberg claims that the plan, which would be introduced for 2022, when the Games are expected to be held in Durban, is "bold" but hopes it will make them more attractive, even though some parts of the plan are controversial, particularly the decision not to include track cycling, which has appeared in every edition of the event since Manchester in 1934, as a core sport.

"it gives greater certainty to athletes, greater connection with the International Federations and creates greater stability in delivery of the Games themselves," he said.

"Having that certainty will allow people to plan."

Grevemberg, the former chief executive of Glasgow 2014, also hopes that the new plan will help attract more top athletes to the Commonwealth Games.

At last year's Commonwealth Games, Usain Bolt only competed for Jamaica in the 4x100 metres relay, while England's double Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m champion Mo Farah was missing altogether.

Grevemberg wants top athletes to embrace the Commonwealth Games as being more than just another multi-sport event.

"It's an engagement that starts not just six weeks before the event but actually can start a year or two before the event when they're achieving and being designated as top level athletes and we can start to court that process towards the games and get the games on their trajectory," he said.

"One of the aspects that we are exploring is that being a Commonwealth athlete is not just about high performance, it's about athletes that achieve greatness but also have an enormous impact on their communities and the citizens of the Commonwealth.

"We believe that will be the piece in the puzzle [for attracting top level athletes]."