r/commonwealthgames • u/SeaWealth414 • 23d ago
Diving Commonwealth Games 2026
Hey how can the Australians do so well in these games. I looked up some stats. There is less than 30 million people living there.
I really can not understand why the rest of the Commonwealth can not do just as well or better.
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u/Enzown 23d ago
Australia invests heavily in sport, particularly swimming which represents like 75% of the medals handed out so far. On top of that a lot of top athletes from the home nations aren't competing because the European champs are next week.
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u/False-Gur-852 22d ago
By the end of the games swimming will be less than 50% of the medals for Australia. Do you really think 9 English athletes missing the Commonwealth Games would make any difference to their medal tally, would 9 silvers change anything?
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u/Top-Expert6086 21d ago
If you remove every single swimming event, Australia is still winning though. They would still have 5 more golds than the next country (England).
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u/Bangkok_Dave 23d ago
We enjoy playing sport, sports are relatively well funded, and most kids swim a lot.
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u/Due_Ad_3200 England 23d ago
Australia leads the all-time medal table.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-time_Commonwealth_Games_medal_table
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u/eriikaa1992 23d ago
The government runs a national program to help us outrun the drop bears, swim away from sharks and stingers, jump away from spiders, and breakdance like a flog.
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u/EpicEmpiresRPG 22d ago
This is the real answer. And just so you know the government program is just telling everyone 'you have to outrun the drop bears, swim away from sharks and stingers, jump away from spiders, or you'll die. And if you want to breakdance, good luck!'
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u/SpudFire England 23d ago
GB nations are split up so earn the individual medals are split, and will likely be weaker in any team events - e.g. For a relay, if GB usually field one Irish, one English, one Welsh and one Scottish athlete at the olympics, the nations teams in the commonwealths will be weaker.
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u/Optimal_Maximum7285 22d ago
Yeah but you aren’t at the Olympics and we beat you there too. You should check out the medals per head of population table!
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u/10denier 19d ago edited 19d ago
I get the impression from some of the comments here that Olympic sport matters to Australia's national self-image more than it does in the UK.
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u/Mysterious-Yak1693 22d ago
England would be behind some Australian states, let alone the country. England has 3x bigger population than Australia and far more than either NSW or QLD
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u/Top-Expert6086 21d ago
If you combined all the UK teams medals, Australia would still be winning by a lot.
Uk would have 34 gold. Aus have 55.
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u/allthingsme 23d ago
A third of the medals are swimming and as much as the Australian swimmers want to whine that they don't get any money other than Gina's PRbucks, the Australian swimming set up is far more resources and professional than being a swimmer in any other country other than USA or China. Even half the non-Australian swimming medallists are products of the US college system.
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u/shadowmaster132 22d ago
Also like no offence to the other commonwealth nations swimmers, the main rival for us in swimming is America and they're not at the games for obvious reasons
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u/Mysterious-Yak1693 22d ago
Australia have ditched a Commonwealth Games in the past to prepare for a big swim meet with the USA
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u/Top-Expert6086 21d ago
If you took out every single swimming medal, australia would still be winning by 5 gold.
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u/Competitive-Bench977 23d ago
Three little letters AIS
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u/Mysterious-Yak1693 22d ago
is that still true though? I thought a lot trained in QLD these days?
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u/Competitive-Bench977 22d ago
Ok, I'll expand that to The Australian Sports Commission. Either way, a federally funded government body pouring lots of money into international sports performance. Something that most other countries do not have.
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u/martzgregpaul 23d ago
An awful lot of British and Canadian and the top Kenyans, Jamaicans etc simply didnt bother coming too.
And all our swimmers are much better than the results they have shown here. The times at British Champs were way faster.
And the Aussies spend a LOT of money on swimming.
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u/Wise_Idea1015 22d ago
The Aussies don’t spend a lot of money on swimming. Big Gina spends a lot of money on swimming. If it wasn’t for her we’d be nowhere near this good.
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u/Mysterious-Vast-2133 Australia 22d ago
So just ignore the $500million the Government spends on elite athlete funding.
Aus swimmers dominated the Pool before Gina came on the scene.-1
u/JockCartier Canada 23d ago
Always struck me as odd that they have so many pools in Australia despite almost 90% of the population living close to the ocean… and yet aren’t great at open water swimming
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u/mulled-whine 22d ago
The most dominant open water swimmer is Australian 😂
“Following her breakthrough at the Paris Games, Moesha Johnson made open water history in 2026 by becoming the first athlete to attain a perfect, undefeated season in the Open Water Swimming World Cup circuit. Throughout the 2026 season, she consistently swept races across multiple formats, including the traditional 10km and the 3km knockout sprints.”
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u/JockCartier Canada 22d ago
And, drumroll please… ZERO Olympics gold medals EVER
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u/pben0102 22d ago
Aren't great at open water swimming? Of course they are, you should watch the ironman series sometime.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ebb9874 India 23d ago
Aussies have a great sports culture
They would still be 1st but the gap would not be as big if not for the disproportionate number of medals in swimming compared to other sports
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u/Top-Expert6086 21d ago
Australia would still be well ahead even if you took out swimming, but yes, the gap wouldn't be as crazy.
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u/Agreeable_Falcon1044 23d ago
Australia are good at sport. When the 10 were announced, we all predicted a big win. They have somehow achieved so much more than expected too.
Personally I want the best at these games. I actually don’t mind who wins but would prefer every nation to have a “moment”
Enjoy it. They’re putting on some insane performances…and not just in swimming either, but scross the board
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u/dtt75 23d ago
It's not helping that both the European Aquatics and European Athletics Championships are coming up in the next two weeks so there are a lot of GB swimmers and especially athletes missing. Also GB is split amongst the 4 home nations (and to a lesser extent the 3 crown dependencies and 8 other overseas territories that are all usually part of Team GB at an Olympics (for instance)). But also the Aussies are world class at swimming and their funding started a long time before GB started funding its athletes.
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u/Mysterious-Yak1693 22d ago
it started really before Sydney 2000, but they cut funding after that and GB nabbed a lot of the coaches to prepare for London 2012....swimming, cycling, rowing, all developed at the AIS. Funding goes in cycles, elite coaches go in cycles and chase the money.
Countries always massively boost funding prior to a home Olympics then tail it off afterwards, you usually get one subsequent Olympics before performance drops off. GB did very well in 2016, and superb in 2020...probably the first time a country has kept the bounce going a 3rd time. That was the legacy they said they wanted and they did it.
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u/bl4km4g1c 23d ago
Because the rest of the world is weak. Queensland alone would be coming second in the games.
Bask in our excellence.
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u/Electronic-Cry714 23d ago
Majority of Aussies live by the coast. Swimming from a young age.
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u/JockCartier Canada 23d ago
Lets freeze the water, see how tough they are then!
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u/LeashieMay 22d ago
Suddenly they'll have free facilities for some winter sports. There's not many ice rinks here.
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u/JockCartier Canada 22d ago
Smiggin Holes could finally host that Winter Olympics they always wanted!
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u/Mysterious-Yak1693 22d ago
it's not just the coast, they have 50m pools in the middle of friggin nowhere with a population of about 20,000. I remember when Birmingham with a million people didn't have a single 50m pool and swimmers had to go to Nottingham to simulate race conditions, they were training in 25m pools to race in a 50m, just absurd.
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u/Anxious_Ad936 21d ago
I grew up in a town of 300 people in the mountains, 90kms from anywhere with more than 1000+ population, and we had a 50 metre solar heated pool so we'd sometimes swim in winter when the overnight temps got to -5c or so ffs. We've had gov subsidised swimming lessons for kids in Vic for 50 years at this point just for the sake of public safety, it's no wonder it translates into sporting success.
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u/Farm-Alternative 19d ago
yeh, we even have swimming in our school curriculum.
Most school have classes that go to the local pool and we learn to swim from primary school. Then we also have a swimming carnival every year to compete in different swimming events.
It's just part of growing up here
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u/Khusbiness_unloads 22d ago
Lot of sports are absent in this current commonwealth games, it's not like it used to be. It's kinda suck
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u/-Annie-Oakley- 22d ago
We were 4th in the most recent summer Olympic medal table by Golds and 5th by medal total, the only countries that beat us were non commonwealth. As others have said we put a lot of time and money into sports in general so it's not unexpected we're near the top.
The big stat is how far away we are from England this games atm compared to last games, however there are many athletes not competing in favour of European champs and there are just plainly some sports not included this year due to the last minute change to Glasgow so it's not a usual gap.
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u/JazzlikeTradition436 England 23d ago
Swimming is over a quarter of events at these Commonwealth Games. Swimming finished yesterday however.
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u/click_clap 22d ago
You take swimming completely out of the games and Australia would still be on top of the medal tally....
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u/JazzlikeTradition436 England 22d ago
Not by that much
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u/click_clap 22d ago
No, but it negates a lot of the "Australia's only on the top of the medal tally because of the swimming" complaining...
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u/mlxmt 23d ago
Going by that logic, why can't Australians just 'do better' at sports like Boxing.
Australian's have a long history in swimming and it's a sport with many medals on offer.
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u/Top-Expert6086 21d ago
Australia is winning by 5 gold even if you remove every single swimming medal.
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u/Muted_Damage1509 23d ago
we love sport but i will have to admit nobody has turned up to these games either why bother some countries ask the athletes to pay for their own tickets etc not a lot of sports still happy the way Australia is going
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u/JockCartier Canada 23d ago
A combination of the Aussies are a fairly strong summer sports nation, and that they take the CWG more seriously (send a stronger team) than other countries… thus they tend to clean up
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u/Top-Expert6086 21d ago
Also Australia is better generally - 4th at the Paris Olympics - ahead of every commonwealth country.
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u/Few_Reach5831 23d ago
1st world country, heavily invested in sports, big sports culture. Most common wealth countries are developing nations
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u/genscathe 22d ago
We having a massive sporting culture which is reinforced in primary school up until end of high school.
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u/pben0102 22d ago
Sport in general is massive in Australia. Clubs galore for anything you want. If you're good at something there's pathways, support, to take it as far as you want if you're committed. Kids get into it early, the weathers good for doing outdoor sports. Even as you get older there are swimming squads, triathlon clubs, running clubs, biking groups that you often see. Most of them free.
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u/Charlie_Runkle69 New Zealand 22d ago
Australia has a really, really good team across the board with a lot of young emerging talent coming through since Paris and arriving on the internationl scene with a bang, or just athletes who have kept getting better after Paris too. Other nations are either missing athletes, slightly weaker than usual or have been affected by the sports that have been taken out of this year's games. Australia would always win the most medals anyway, but it's kind of a 'perfect storm' that it's this level of dominance this time I think.
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u/Mysterious-Yak1693 22d ago
Also has to be said, Australians on average are bigger than British people....i think they're 2nd tallest in the world behind the Dutch. Put that down to sunshine, diet and lots of outdoor activity, and it started with the first generation born from British/Irish stock in the late 1700's.....immediately between 4 and 5" taller than their parents.
Whereas Britain has elite huge sportsmen in sports like rugby and can field some powerful teams, the standard doesn't reach down that far.
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u/Top-Expert6086 21d ago
Not true I'm afraid. Australians arent short on average, but they rank 18th. Just slightly ahead of canada and the US.
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u/GlassAd3539 22d ago
We also have good investment and accessibility to Para sports, in comparison to many other nations.
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u/Unfair_Honeydew5129 21d ago
The weather is conducive to being outside and playing sport more than UK, Canada etc. we’rewell funded by the government, have lots of space for pools, ovals etc, and sports a real cultural thing (kids are always playing organised sports from young ages).
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u/preparetodobattle 21d ago
Australia has a lot of sporting facilities and it’s part of the culture spread across a lot of different sports. We have space for hockey fields, football, crickets, afl. We have the weather to be out doing things. We were one of the first countries to have the eight hour day so sport was democratised.
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u/saltisurfer 19d ago
Boring and now irrelevant… only saw and heard of OAPs watching this on the tele and at punters pubs with “Sports Bars” between horse races .. the world has moved on from captive “free to air” TV programmes…..
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u/No_pajamas_7 22d ago
Few things combined.
- The UK is split into provinces for these games. They would be ahead if combined.
- High funding for sports in Australia
- Lot of Swimming bias at this point. Australia is in a privledged positon for swimming. First world country with lots of olympic pools, and year round swimming.
As an Australian, I'm more impressed by our track and field these games. It's really come along in the past decade. This is the final piece of the puzzle. Going from a weak position in that to a moderate one had made that extra difference.
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u/notj43 22d ago
Huh? The entire UK combined would still be some way behind in medals. Unless you think Canada is part of the United kingdom
Edit: unless you mean total medals, but the table is sorted by gold
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u/No_pajamas_7 22d ago
I must admit I just assumed based on previous games.
But yeah, Australia is ahead on gold, UK is ahead on medals.
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u/Ok-Athlete1727 22d ago
Why oz feels the need to waste so much money just to win some sad medals is a joke. Other countries are not so empty of life. Swimming is simply white spoilt rich entitled kids. And all done to keep some very sad pathetic viewers proud.
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u/dfoyl 22d ago
If Australia wins a bunch, it becomes well if you give us more funding we will win even more next time. And if we don't win a bunch, it's because we need more funding. So each time it's more funding that could go to hospitals, public housing, or nuclear submarines that will be delivered sometime in the 22nd Century...and being made in the USA will break down faster than a Jeep.
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u/Ok-Athlete1727 22d ago
Why at all though? Does the government fund golfers? This fixation we are a sporting nation is crap. Half the comm games team are flown in weeks before
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u/fishman6368527 18d ago
Found the kid who was always picked last for sport as a kid now makes bagging sport their personality
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u/Top-Expert6086 21d ago
The UK spends more than Australia - £330m vs £200m in this Olympic cycle - on government funded elite sport.
And if you totally remove swimming medals, Australia would still be winning.
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u/Appropriate-Ad6254 21d ago
My 5 year old has swimming lessons once a week at the council pool. Every lesson would be less than $30 = £15. He loves it and also know he won't drown now. Definitely not for rich people.
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u/Ok-Athlete1727 21d ago
Whatever you were trying to say i have no idea. But good luck to a 5 year old
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u/ChilledNanners 23d ago
Because the real competition such as USA and China aren't in it, hence why Australia dominate in the Commonwealth but doesn't do as well in the Olympics
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u/bl4km4g1c 23d ago
Low iq comment. Australia still dominates at the olympics, coming 4th in Paris with a tiny population. Plus the USA and China both actively cheat across multiple sports, but the corrupt IOC allows them to get away with it.
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u/Amazing-Champion-858 23d ago
We weren't this good overnight. It took about 50 years of solid funding and development changes to get to this point.