BIRMINGHAM – British pop giants Duran Duran headlined a glitzy Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in Birmingham on Thursday as greater than 5,000 athletes braced for battle.

Competitors from 72 nations and territories, many of that are former British colonies, will probably be vying for medals in 19 sports activities over a jam-packed 11 days within the English Midlands.

The opening ceremony on the revamped Alexander Stadium paid tribute to the economic heritage of town and celebrated the range of its trendy make-up.

Prince Charles arrived together with his spouse Camilla in his private Aston Martin throughout a section highlighting Birmingham’s wealthy historical past of motor manufacturing.

Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, who moved to town after surviving a Pakistani Taliban assassination try when she was 15, mentioned each baby deserves the possibility to “pursue her wildest dreams”.

Prince Charles declared the Games open as Duran Duran acquired the celebration began to a backdrop of fireworks throughout town.

• Australia pool energy –
  Away from the marquee athletics and swimming occasions, girls’s Twenty20 cricket makes its debut on the twenty second Games and 3×3 basketball will characteristic for the primary time.

There is an built-in para sports activities programme in some occasions in Birmingham, which stepped in for the South African metropolis of Durban, initially chosen to host the Games.

Sporting powerhouse Australia have topped the medals desk at each Games since 1990 besides in 2014, when England completed prime in Glasgow — the final time the occasion was held on British soil.

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland compete as separate groups in the course of the Commonwealths moderately than as a mixed British outfit.

In the pool, Emma McKeon, Ariarne Titmus, Kaylee McKeown and teenage sensation Mollie O’Callaghan will lead the cost for a star-studded Australian crew when competitors begins on Friday.

Double Olympic champion Titmus, 21, opted out of the current world championships in Budapest to preserve herself recent for Birmingham.

McKeon, 28, who received seven medals — together with 4 golds — ultimately yr’s Olympics in Tokyo, boasts an outstanding Commonwealth Games report, with eight gold and 4 bronze medals in two appearances.

Headlining for England will probably be breaststroke celebrity Adam Peaty, who missed Budapest with a foot damage, denying him the possibility to declare his fourth consecutive 50m-100m world double.

Peaty, 27, is set to break his personal 100m world report of 56.88 seconds.

“I wouldn’t be swimming now if I knew I couldn’t break a world record again,” he mentioned. “It’s just not enough for me to stay in the sport and win and win and win.”

• Calendar conflict –
  The Commonwealth Games come sizzling on the heels of the world athletics championships in Eugene, Oregon, which solely completed on Sunday.

The worlds had been rescheduled from final yr after the coronavirus pandemic compelled a delay to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics however that has created a headache for athletes in a crowded schedule.

Olympic champions Andre De Grasse, Kirani James and Neeraj Chopra will probably be absent from Birmingham.

Jamaican dash star Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who received a fifth 100m world title in Oregon, will even be lacking.

Shericka Jackson and Elaine Thompson-Herah, who completed second and third within the 100m in Eugene, have been named in Jamaica’s crew, although there are doubts over whether or not a number of Olympic champion Thompson-Herah will journey.

Australian excessive jumper Eleanor Patterson and javelin thrower Kelsey-Lee Barber will arrive as newly minted world champions.

Scotland’s Jake Wightman, who shocked Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen to win 1,500m gold within the United States, will even be a giant draw.

The relevance of the quadrennial Commonwealth Games – first held in 1930 as the British Empire Games – has come underneath scrutiny, with persistent questions over Britain’s colonial legacy.

Several Commonwealth nations, together with Barbados and Jamaica, have both eliminated Queen Elizabeth II as head of state or have signalled they intend to achieve this.

But British sports activities minister Nigel Huddleston is adamant there’s nonetheless a spot for the occasion within the sporting panorama.

“The Commonwealth still has resonance and value, particularly in a diverse city like Birmingham where there’s a lot of people who have come from the Commonwealth,” he mentioned within the build-up to the Games.

“It does have meaning,” he mentioned. “It might not be what it was in the past but it’s evolving and changing, and that focus on values and what can unite us is key.”