The 2006 Commonwealth Games included 16 sports, with 12 individual sports and 4 team sports. In total there are 247 events at the Games. Four of these sports are further broken down into separate disciplines, making a total of 24 disciplines: * Aquatics: diving, swimming, synchronised swimming. * Cycling: track, road, mountain bike. * Gymnastics: artistic, rhythmic. * Shooting: clay target, pistol, small bore and air rifle, full bore rifle. The athletics, swimming, table tennis and weightlifting sports include fully integrated events for elite athletes with a disability (EAD). These events are included in the official medal tally.
; Cycling: England managed a clean sweep of the 4,000 m individual pursuit gold medal on the cycle track. Paul Manning beat fellow team mate Rob Hayles in the final. Steve Cummings won the bronze medal race. Australian Ben Kersten manages to beat the World and Olympic champions in the 1 km time trial.Swimming: Scotland's Caitlin McClatchey beat Australia's Libby Lenton in the Women's 200 m Freestyle Final, setting a new Games record of 1:57.25. England's Melanie Marshall came in third. David Carry of Scotland has won the 400 m Freestyle Final, winning the second swimming gold for his country. Canadian Andrew Hurd picked up the silver in 3:49.08 and David Davies from Wales came third. Moss Burmester from New Zealand won gold in the 200 m Butterfly in a new New Zealand and Commonwealth record time of 1:56.64.; Weightlifting: The Games' first Gold medal was awarded in the Women's Weightlifting (48 kg class) to Kunjarani Devi Nameirakpam from India. Marilou Dozois-Prevost from Canada won the silver, and Erika Yamazaki of Australia picked up the bronze.
Day 2 - March 17
; Cycling: Australians Kate Bates and Rochelle Gilmore get gold and silver respectively in the Women's 25 km Points Race, repeating their Manchester Games results. Their teamate Alexis Rhodes took ninth place after being seriously injured in Germany in an accident that took the life of Amy Gillett, in whose honour all three dedicated their ride.Rugby Sevens: New Zealand win the gold medal at the Telstra Dome with a convincing 29-21 win over England. Fiji win the bronze medal with a 24-17 win over Australia in a game marred by a serious injury to Australian player Scott Fava.; Swimming: Australia gets all three medals in both the Women's 50 m Butterfly and Women's 50 m Breastroke.
Day 3 - March 18
; Swimming: Australia swept gold, silver, and bronze in both the Women's 50 m Breaststroke and the 50 m Butterfly. Leisel Jones and Danni Miatke, respectively, won the golds.Triathlon: Day 3 saw the Australians and New Zealanders completely dominate the triathlon event. After missing out on qualification for the 2004 Athens Olympics, Emma Snowsill took the gold medal with a time of 1:58:02.59. New Zealand secured silver (Samantha Warriner), bronze (Andrea Hewitt) and fourth place for the Women's event. Continuing Australia's dominance in the Triathlon, Brad Kahlefeldt won gold in the men's triathlon event with a time of 1:49:16. Australian Peter Robertson was just beaten by New Zealander, Bevan Docherty for silver, while Robertson took the bronze.; Cycling: Australian cyclist Ryan Bayley won the Men's Sprint, his second gold medal for these Games.
Day 4 - March 19
; Athletics: Australian Kerryn McCann successfully defends her 2002 Commonwealth Games gold medal title by winning the women's marathon event with a time of 2:30:50.Athletics: Tanzania retained the men's marathon title, Samson Ramadhani taking the gold. Kenya's Fred Mogaka took silver, and England's Dan Robinson took the bronze. ; Cycling: The Isle Of Man won their first Commonwealth gold in 20 years, when Mark Cavendish won the men's Scratch Race final. Cavendish held off Australia's Ashley Hutchinson on the final bend to triumph, with Scotland's James McCallum claiming bronze.Swimming: World champion Jessicah Schipper of Australia swam a Games record in beating team-mate Libby Lenton for the women's 100 m butterfly gold.
Day 5 - March 20
; Athletics: Australian Craig Mottram and crowd favourite, is edged out by Augustine Choge in the men's 5000 m by 2 seconds. Choge won in a Games-record time of 12 min 56.41 s. At one stage during the race Mottram ran with 3 Kenyan racers in front of him and 3 Tanzanian racers behind him.Athletics: Asafa Powell, world record holder, wins the men's 100 m sprint in a time of 10.03 seconds, ahead of Nigeria's Soji Fasuba and the Trinidadian Marc Burns. His Jamaican compatriot, Sheri-Ann Brooks won the women's 100 m in a personal best time of 11.19 s, ahead of South Africa's Geraldine Pillay and Delphine Antangana, of Cameroon.; Squash: The Grinham sisters (Australia) battled for the Gold medal. Natalie triumphed over Rachel 2-9 9-6 9-1 9-6. Peter Nicol won his third Commonwealth Games gold medal. He previously won the singles title in 1998, and the doubles in 2002. He recaptured the singles title in four games, defeating Australia's David Palmer 9-5 10-8 4-9 9-2.Swimming: Scotland won two more gold medals in the pool, with Caitlin McClatchey and Gregor Tait each winning their second titles in the 400 m freestyle and 200 m individual medley respectively. Australia's Leisel Jones set the first world record of the swimming competition, breaking her own record in the 100 m breastroke with a time of 1:05.09.
Day 6 - March 21
; Swimming: The Australian women's swimming team again asserted their dominance in the pool, breaking the 4 x 100 m Medley Relay world record in a time of 3:56.30, over a second faster than that set by the Australian women's swimming team in the 2004 Athens Olympics. The Australian women completed one of the most successful campaigns in games' history, finishing with 16 gold medals, just 3 short of the entire meet's offerings. The Australian men's swimming team finishes on a successful note, winning the 4 x 100 m Medley Relay. This was one of their least successful games meets with 3 gold medals. Athletics: The Kenyan women finish with Lucy Wangui (31:29.66) and Evelyne Nganga (31:30.86) gold and silver respectively in the 10,000 m run. Wangui overtook Nganga in the final straight, after Nganga attempted to break away. Mara Yamauchi of England was third.; Athletics: Dean Macey of England overcame injury to win his first major title in the men's Decathlon. Maurice Smith of Jamaica took silver and Australian Jason Dudley earned bronze.
Day 7 - March 22
; Athletics : New Zealander Valerie Vili won gold in the women's shot put, setting a new Commonwealth Games record of 19.66 metres.
Cycling:England's Liam Killeen led an England one-two in the men's mountain bike cross country race. The 23-year-old eased home in two hours 13.11 minutes, ahead of team-mate Oli Beckingsale.
;Athletics: Australian Nathan Deakes won the mens 50 km walk in a time of 3:42:53, beating the previous record set by him at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games by over 10 minutes. New Zealander Tony Sargisson took silver medal in 3:58:05 while Australia's Christopher Erickson took the bronze in 3:58:22.Basketball: The Australian men's team beat New Zealand 81-76 to win the first gold medal in this sport at the Commonwealth Games. The English men's team beat Nigeria 80-57 to take the bronze.
Australian Matthew Helm won the Men's 10 m Platform with 1085.60 points. Silver went to England's Peter Waterfield with 1030.50 points and bronze went to Canadian Alexandre Despatie with 1016.95 points.
Nick Willis, gold medallist in the 1500 metres in a time of 3:38.49 mins, became the first athlete from New Zealand to win a track medal for twenty-four years.
Scotland's Kenny Anderson won the Light Heavyweight gold after defeating his opponent, Adura Olalehin, 23-19 after fighting back from 7-13 down after two rounds. During the fight, Olalehin had four points, the same as the margin of victory, awarded against himself for repeatedly holding Anderson.
Day 11 - Closing Ceremony - March 26
;Gymnastics: Canadian Alexandra Orlando completed the rhythmic gymanstics competition having won six gold medals - a gold in every rhythmic gymnastics event - to become the fourth competitor to win six gold medals at a single Commonwealth Games.
;Hockey: In the men's final, the host nation beat Pakistan 3-0, after leading 1-0 before the break. In the bronze medal play-off, England lost to Malaysia 2-0.
;Netball: New Zealand defeats Australia 60-55 in the gold medal match, to become the first country other than Australia to win Commonwealth Games gold in the sport.
Early concerns have arisen about the large cost of staging the Games, with projected costs likely to be over 1 billion Australian dollars and a high likelihood the state government will have to cover the expense. The cost has been described in local media as excessive for what many regard as a non-premier sports event.
Melbourne's premier sporting ground, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), has been recently redeveloped in preparation for the Games. An athlete's village in the inner suburb of Parkville housed approximately 7,000 athletes and support staff during the Games, and is now being transformed into commercial housing with a distinctly eco-friendly image. The creation of this village has attracted controversy, with critics claiming it was created by alienating public parkland, while proponents maintain that it represents the renewal of an otherwise derelict inner-city area. Although experts have questioned whether the affluent suburb can accurately be construed as derelict.
The change from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time in Australian states that follow it has been pushed back from March 26 to April 2 for 2006 to avoid affecting the games. In order to deal with the change, software company and official technology partner of the Games, Microsoft released a daylight savings patch for their Windows line of operating system. However, they did not modify the start and end rule for the time zones affected, but instead added new timezones with the words "(Commonwealth Games)" which caused various issues with many software applications, including Microsoft Outlook and several accounting packages.
In addition, state and private schools amended their usual term times so as to allow the first term end-of-term holidays to coincide with the Games. [1] This has severely disrupted the timetable for the VCE leaving many students under more stress than is usually expected at this time.
Melbourne's public transport system - train, tram and bus - ran to altered timetables with some amended or substituted services for the duration of the Games. For the most part, timetabled services were unchanged but suffered due to higher loads.
* The host broadcaster was Trans World International, while the domestic rights-holding broadcaster is the Nine Network in Australia. They showed rolling coverage, except for a break for the evening news and overnight. * In Australia Fox Sports broadcast the Games on eight dedicated digital Pay-TV channels. These were available on the Foxtel, Austar and Optus Vision networks. * The BBC covered the Commonwealth Games in the UK on BBC One and BBC Two. BBCi included a choice of two extra video streams on Freeview and four streams on Digital Satellite and Cable [2]. Users with Broadband in the UK could also view all 5 video streams on bbc.co.uk, and the BBC Sport website. *CBC, CBC Newsworld, and CBC Country Canada aired a daily one-hour highlights show of the Commonwealth Games in Canada. Compared to past games, the CBC's coverage was minimally staffed, with commentary from other broadcasting partners. At first, they did not even consider bidding for the broadcasting rights [3] due to scheduling conflicts with events Canadians are more interested in, such as the Tim Hortons Brier, World Figure Skating Championships, and the 2006 Winter Paralympics(which itself had been reduced to five-to-ten minute daily coverage). None of Canada's metropolitan newspapers have sent any journalists to report on the Games, instead relying on news agencies *TVNZ covered the games for the residents of New Zealand *In Malaysia, TV1 broadcasted live coverage of the Games for three hours starting at 10 a.m. Malaysian time and for two hours starting at 3 p.m., with highlights at 12:30 a.m.. Astro also included 3 dedicated channels to broadcast the Games live & delayed broadcast 24 hours to it Sports package subscribers. *Singapore's MediaCorp TV had supposedly not broadcast the games due to the high cost of telecast rights, satellite charges and the lack of sponsors. However, on 17 March, the MediaCorp found other sponsors which is the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and the Singapore Sports Council. Broadcast started from March 18 till the end of the games. [4] *In the United States, selected coverage was be carried by Fox College Sports
On 20 March2006 it was reported that two athletes had gone missing from the Commonwealth Games village: Tanzanian boxer Omari Idd Kimweri and Bangladeshi runner Mohammad Tawhidul Islam.
On 22 March2006 it was reported that seven athletes from Sierra Leone (three women and four men) had also disappeared. A further seven Sierra Leonean athletes also went missing during the course of the Games, bringing the total runaway count to fourteen (two thirds of the team). Victoria Police believed that they had fled to Sydney where the Sierra Leonean community is much larger than Melbourne's.
Two hours before the Closing Ceremony on 26 March, officials from the Cameroon team reported to police that nine of their members had also vanished.
These incidents were not without precedence: 27 athletes similarly disappeared from the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England (21 from Sierra Leone, 5 from Bangladesh and one from Pakistan), and over 80 athletes and officials overstayed their visas after the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.
On request of Sierra Leone officials, the Commonwealth Games Federation cancelled those athletes' Games accreditation, allowing the Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) to cancel their visas at midnight on 27 March, and begin investigating their disappearance.
At 7.20am on that day, New South Wales Police located six of the Sierra Leonean athletes in a house at Harbord near Manly Beach in Sydney. All six indicated they wished to seek political asylum in Australia, and were granted bridging visas by DIMA while their refugee applications were arranged. The athletes claimed to have been subjected to violence and torture in their home country; seventeen-year-old Isha Conteh stated she could be forced into female circumcision if she returned.ABC On Tuesday 28 March, six further Sierra Leoneans turned themselves in to immigration authorities in Sydney and were also granted bridging visas.
