Commonwealth Games 2018 - Welcome to the Gold Coast

[misskarne]

Montserrat in black and grey tracksuits, with a little green trim.

Saint Lucia with the ladies in yellow and red plaid dresses and green shawls, the men in white shirts with same colour plaid bowties and scarves!

St Kitts and Nevis in red shirts and black pants!

 

[misskarne]

St Vincent and the Grenadines in very colourful yellow, green and blue woven shirts, the ladies in long dresses in the same colours.

Trinidad and Tobago in red jackets with black pants...except for a few ladies dressed up carnivale style and one of the men shirtless with traditional accessories!

Turks and Caicos Islands, in white shirts/dresses, with colourful stripes!

 

[misskarne]

Time to move onto Oceania!

Cook Islands first, in green dresses with yellow patterns and matching shirts on the men! Flower crowns on the ladies and hats on the men!

Fiji in blue shirt and dark blue skirts. Gorgeous traditional dress on the flagbearer.

Kiribati very excited and dancing! The flag bearer is going crazy and it's great! He's in traditional dress, the other sin dark blue and gold flower-patterned dresses and shirts.

Nauru in beautiful long blue dresses with white flowers, the men in matching shirts, the ladies wearing flower crowns!

 

[misskarne]

Kiwis IN DA HOUSE! New Zealand in black blazers over black-and-white diagonal stripe shirts and black bottoms.

Niue in beige patterned shirts, with beads hanging around their necks, and more flower crowns on the ladies!

Norfolk Island with black waistcoats on the men and black shawls on the ladies over white shirts and black pants, and straw hats.

Papua New Guinea in very colourful black/white/red/yellow patterned dresses, tunics and shirts.

 

[misskarne]

Samoa in pale blue patterned shirts and navy skirts (? skirts is not the right word is it?)

Solomon Islands in black suits with green/blue ties, gorgeous traditional dress on the flagbearer.

Tonga in red blazers, white shirts, and blue ?skirts? with woven chains or skirts over that.

Tuvalu in bright blue and yellow hawaiian-style shirts and traditional necklaces!

Vanuatu in yellow shirts with red and black stripes, black pants.

 

[Lorac]

The Australians are in the house!!!!!!

 

[misskarne]

I think you know who that roar means!

AUSTRALIA IN DA HOUSE!

in dark green blazers, gold ties/scarves, and grey pants/skirts!

 

[misskarne]

(the background music has suitably shifted to Land Down Under.)

EDIT: and now is Playing to Win. Heh. We're not subtle.

 

[skatingguy]

Joining the fun. Wish the weather was as nice here as it appears to be in the Gold Coast.

 

[misskarne]

Joining the fun. Wish the weather was as nice here as it appears to be in the Gold Coast.

It's 23C there at the moment - 73F, at a quarter to 10pm. But muggy. BOM is showing a high likelihood of showers.

 

[Lorac]

Joining the fun. Wish the weather was as nice here as it appears to be in the Gold Coast.

It was torrential rain on the Gold Coast just prior to the ceremony. But I'd take warm rain over what we've got here in the UK.

 

[skatingguy]

The temperature here is hanging right around the freezing mark. We've had snow, rain, ice pellets, and freezing rain since late yesterday afternoon.

 

[misskarne]

Ooof, this song is a giant mashup of feels.

This is our home, you're welcome here...then transitioning to I Still Call Australia Home and then I Am Australian.

 

[misskarne]

Traditional smoking ceremony now, to cleanse and unite. They're even lighting the fire for it in the traditional way.

 

[misskarne]

NO. YOU DO NOT REMIX THIS SONG. EVER.

 

[Lorac]

Now an anti war song!!!

 

[Lorac]

All I can say is thank goodness there is no roof otherwise the fire alarms would have gone off by now!!

 

[misskarne]

Now an anti war song!!!

You're the Voice is possibly one of the greatest Australian songs of all time. You do not mess with it. Of course, it's hard for anyone other than John Farnham to belt it out with the requisite amount of power.

 

[misskarne]

Commonwealth Games flag being brought in by six talented young athletes from across the Commonwealth.

 

[Lorac]

You're the Voice is possibly one of the greatest Australian songs of all time. You do not mess with it. Of course, it's hard for anyone other than John Farnham to belt it out with the requisite amount of power.

I love the song but as you say when there is such a definitive version that is held dear any other version is going to feel like a let down. I personally like the Heart version but then they have the power to belt it out!!!

 

[misskarne]

Speech time. I'm probably going to bed. Have to work tomorrow.

Enjoy the rest, folks!

 

[Lorac]

So the Queens baton arrives in a camper van!!!!!

 

[allezfred]

Which country to cheer against? Decisions, decisions.

 

[Lorac]

Well the Brownlees finally disappoint at a global event - sad. English men doing well at the Gymnastics - just one apparatus to go but Gold in team looks good!! Still unsure why Ben Proud was DQ'ed in his 50m butterfly heat. A teeny twitch prior to the gun going off but no advantage gained!!

Also Scotland doing well to push for bronze in the men's team gymnastics after losing a gymnast early on. I think they may just have it as well!!!

 

[skatingguy]

Which country to cheer against? Decisions, decisions.

England, obviously.

 

[allezfred]

England, obviously.

Part of me thinks it would be entertaining to see them win more medals than Australia though.

 

[Lorac]

Well considering the English team weren't our top ladies due to injuries I think they did them selves proud by winning Silver in the ladies gymnastics team event pushing Canada who won Gold, Australia make up the podium winning Bronze.

 

[Erin]

I agree @Lorac that the English gymnastics team did really well - if they hadn't counted a fall on beam, they might have won. Taeja James had a massive score on floor and looks to have justified her choice to the team (although I still think that Charlie Fellows was treated badly by the English fed by being told to keep training and that she would be picked if someone was hurt and then not being picked). Australia really struggled today through a couple events, but most of the team has been really sick. I was glad to see they at least ended on a good note for the bronze.

Thrilled for Canada to get the gold for the first time in 28 years after missing the podium last time around. There was a nice article I read recently about how Brittany Rogers keeps hoping for the perfect ending to her gymnastics career - this might finally be what she was waiting for!

Ellie Black was narrowly the top qualifier for the AA over Kelly Simm and Alice Kinsella so those look like the contenders there. Ellie also leads the beam field so it will be interesting to see if she can repeat her title there although beam is so unpredictable. Georgia-Mae Fenton first on bars, no surprise at all and Shallon Olson on vault, same there.

 

[misskarne]

Just watched the Malawi/Scotland netball game. Some straight-up bullshit umpiring in the last 20 seconds. Scotland were given about five resets after the clock hit zero and they still couldn't get it. I swear if the umpire had reset them again after the last shot the stadium was going to riot. It was insane.

 

[Skate Talker]

very disappointed with Canadian coverage - opening & closing ceremonies live, a couple of prepackaged hours both Saturdays, and not even a link anywhere to schedules and results, no sports news items - I can never remember a more ignored international games event. Perhaps a victim of timing? Too many pro sports (particularly hockey) heading into playoffs? Too close to the wall to wall Olympic coverage? Not traditionally a summer sports time of year and we seem to be stuck in a never-ending winter with way below normal temps and still a lot of snow (can't remember the last time we had snow pack in April - particularly in a year where we didn't even get much snow.