The Commonwealth Games is a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exception of 1942 and 1946, have successively run every four years since. The event was called the British Empire Games from 1930 to 1950, the British Empire and Commonwealth Games from 1954 to 1966, and British Commonwealth Games from 1970 to 1974. Athletes with a disability are included as full members of their national teams since 2002, making the Commonwealth Games the first fully inclusive international multi-sport event. In 2018, the Games became the first global multi-sport event to feature an equal number of men's and women's medal events and four years later they became the first global multi-sport event to have more events for women than men.
Sport has always been important in Birmingham, England, from the hundreds of diverse grass-roots sports clubs to internationally famous teams, associations and venues.
The European Athletics Championships is a biennial athletics event organised by the European Athletics Association and is recognised as the elite continental outdoor athletics championships for Europe.
David Robert Moorcroft is a former middle-distance and long-distance runner from England, and former world record holder for 5,000 metres. His athletic career spanned the late-1970s and 1980s. He subsequently served as the Chief Executive of UK Athletics from 1997 to 2007. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1983 and promoted to an Officer (OBE) in 1999, in both cases for services to athletics. In March 2023, he was appointed a Deputy lieutenant of the West Midlands.
Alexander Stadium is a track and field athletics stadium in Perry Park, Birmingham, England. It hosted the athletics and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Other events held there include the annual British Grand Prix between 2011 and 2019 and in 2022, the Amateur Athletics Association Championships, the 1998 Disability World Athletics Championships, and the English Schools' Athletics Championships. The Stadium will also host the Midlands Hurricanes rugby league team from 2023 onwards.
The English Institute of Sport is a multi-sport facility in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The facility designed by FaulknerBrowns Architects was opened in December 2003 at a cost of £24 million. Its main feature is a 200m indoor track, but it also hosts several other sporting arenas as well as a large gym and extensive sports medicine facilities. It is in the Lower Don Valley between the Sheffield Arena and Don Valley Bowl. It is managed by SIV.
Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill is a retired British track and field athlete from England, specialising in the heptathlon and 100 metres hurdles. As a competitor in heptathlon, she is the 2012 Olympic champion, a three-time world champion, and the 2010 European champion. She is also the 2010 World Indoor pentathlon champion. A member of the City of Sheffield & Dearne athletic club, she is a former British national record holder for the heptathlon. She is also a former British record holder in the 100 metres hurdles, the high jump and the indoor pentathlon.
Sport in England plays a prominent role in English society. Popular teams sports in England include field hockey, cricket, rugby union, rugby league, and netball. Major individual sports include badminton, athletics, tennis, boxing, golf, cycling, motorsport, and horseracing. Cricket is regarded as the national summer sport. Association football is the most popular sport, followed by Cricket, Tennis and Rugby. A number of modern sports were codified in England during the nineteenth century, among them cricket, rugby union, rugby league, football, field hockey, bandy, squash, tennis, and badminton. The game of baseball was first described in 18th century England.
The United Kingdom was awarded a number of major international sporting events during the 2010s leading to an idea of a 'Golden Decade' in British sport. The idea of the golden decade has been discussed in many newspapers and has been mentioned by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Lord Coe.
The 2013 European Athletics Indoor Championships were held at Scandinavium and Svenska Mässan in Gothenburg, Sweden, on 1–3 March 2013.
The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Birmingham 2022, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations that took place in Birmingham, England between 28 July and 8 August 2022. It was the third and seventh time England and the United Kingdom hosted the Commonwealth Games, respectively.
Laura Muir is a Scottish middle- and long-distance runner. She is the 2020 Tokyo Olympic silver medallist in the 1500 metres, having previously finished seventh in the event at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Muir won the bronze medal at the 2022 World Championships, and has three other top five placings in 1500 m finals at the World Athletics Championships, finishing fifth in 2015, fourth in 2017 and fifth in 2019. She is a two-time European 1500 m champion from 2018 and 2022 as well as the 2022 Commonwealth Games 1500 m champion and 800 metres bronze medallist.
Shannon Hylton is an English sprinter. She represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the 2017 World Championships. She narrowly missed qualifying for the semifinals.
The Birmingham bid for the 2022 Commonwealth Games was a bid by Birmingham, England and Commonwealth Games England to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games. On 21 December 2017 it was announced that the bid has been successful.
The 2019 European Athletics Indoor Championships was held between 1 and 3 March 2019 at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland. This was the second time this event was held in the city after the 1990 edition and the third time it was held in the United Kingdom, following the 2007 Edition in Birmingham, England. The three-day competition featured 13 men's and 13 women's athletics events and took place over three morning and three afternoon sessions.
The venues for the 2022 Commonwealth Games will be based in Birmingham, Cannock Chase, Coventry, Royal Leamington Spa, Sandwell, Solihull, Warwick, Wolverhampton, and London.
There have been concerns and controversies about the 2022 Commonwealth Games, which were held in Birmingham, England.
An extensive bidding process for the 2026 Commonwealth Games began in 2018, and ended in 2022 with the announcement of the state of Victoria, Australia being the host. The host city was to be announced in 2019 in Rwanda, but was cancelled over lack of interest. The winning bid was announced by Dame Louise Martin, head of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF).
The 2022 European Athletics U18 Championships was the third edition of the biennial continental athletics competition for European athletes aged fifteen to seventeen. It was held in Jerusalem, Israel from 4 to 7 July at the Hebrew University Stadium. The event returned after a four-year hiatus since Gyor 2018, because Rieti 2020 was first postponed to 2021 and then cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A future edition has been awarded to Rieti for 2026.
