Red Arrows and raging bulls – the Commonwealth Games opens in Birmingham

Red Arrows and raging bulls rumbled around Alexander Stadium on Thursday night as a Commonwealth Games that many claim faces a continuing fight to retain its relevance amped up the volume and belted a bold declaration of its intent to preserve its voice.

Against a Brummie musical backdrop ranging from Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi to eighties new wavers Duran Duran, the first Games to be staged in England since Manchester in 2002 arrived amid a deafening chorus of calls for change both on and off the track.

Nick Rhodes and John Taylor formed Duran Duran as the house band for the Rum Runner nightclub on Broad Street in 1978, the same year Edmonton in Alberta staged the 13th edition of the Games, controversially boycotted by Nigeria and Uganda over New Zealand’s continued sporting dialogue with apartheid-era South Africa.

Yet the tiresome narratives of relevance and relative mediocrity which trail after the Games like aerobatic jet plumes obscure a central point that the Birmingham 2022 opening ceremony exhibited with such eloquence: the so-called ‘Friendly’ Games is better placed than ever to confirm its status as a real catalyst for change.

For once, the ceremony’s storyline, of a group of young athletes exploring the city’s struggles and successes in search of a brighter future, struck an obvious chord.

Kids will clutch tickets to venues like the NEC and the Birmingham Arena in the next 10 days, or watch the action unfolding on television, entirely unconcerned that split times are a shadow of those seen at the recent World Championships, or that gymnastics apparatus scores compare unfavourably with the towering decimals recorded in Tokyo.

Superstars still sprinkle the schedules, but the Commonwealth Games is as much about those athletes from tiny atolls who have worked just as fervently to earn their place on the start line alongside their heroes. It is the kind of sporting diversity that makes these Games irresistibly – even anachronistically – unique.

As the ceremony drew to a close, Tom Daley proudly emerged flanked by Pride flags as one of six final torch-bearers to enter the stadium, each of whom represented a different cause or under-represented minority that is closest to their heart.

If it was a deliberate ploy by organisers to brashly extricate themselves from the corporate hand-wringing that accompanied similar challenges in Tokyo, then it was one entirely in keeping with the zesty and forward-thinking mood of the ceremony, and one to be roundly applauded.

The absence of Dina Asher-Smith through injury is an obvious blow for Games organisers, but newly-crowned 1500m world champion Jake Wightman, clad in Scotland’s colours, will bring plenty of star quality to a track programme which will conversely feature its usual array of much-lapped middle-distancers.

Adam Peaty, part-way through his self-appointed quest to become the greatest breaststroke swimmer of all time, will share the pool at Sandwell Aquatics Centre with the latest incarnations of Eric The Eels, straight from achieving qualification standards in 20-metre hotel pools in their homelands.

All will be equally welcome at a Games that should be seen as a 10-day diversion from the problems that afflict a far greater portion of the world than the 72 Commonwealth federations represented in Birmingham.

Enjoy it while it lasts and to paraphrase Duran Duran, save your prayers for the morning after.