Commonwealth Games England marked the turn of the year into 2010 by underlining its excitement about the forthcoming celebration of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October.

“It is our intention to send a strong team to the Games and we are very much looking forward to it”, said England Chef de Mission, Craig Hunter, on the penultimate day of 2009.

More than 500 team members are expected to travel to India for the Games to represent England in 17 sports. The England team, which will be selected on a sport by sport basis throughout 2010, looks set to include stars such as double Olympic gold medal swimmer Rebecca Adlington alongside exciting newcomers like teenage weightlifter and former Commonwealth Youth Games medallist Zoe Smith.

For many sports the Games are the pinnacle of the 2010 calendar. British swimming has already said that the Games are the key focus in 2010 whilst England’s netballers will seek to get on the medal table alongside their strong rivals Australia and New Zealand.

England’s hockey squads, whose men will have an early opportunity to test the Delhi facilities when they play in the world cup there in March, will be aiming to make a mark in a country which is fanatical about their sport and England’s world-ranked squash and badminton players will be in the medal hunt.

England traditionally has a strong lawn bowls squad at the Games who, in early 2010, will travel to Australia to gain practice opportunities on the type of artificial lawns that will be laid for Delhi.

England’s team for the Games is likely to be the biggest yet with the Games being seen as a significant multi-sport testing ground en route to London 2012.


The 2010 Commonwealth Games take place in Delhi, India, from 3 to 14
October 2010. They will feature 17 sports - archery, aquatics (swimming, synchronised swimming & diving), athletics, badminton, boxing, cycling, gymnastics, hockey, lawn bowls, netball, rugby 7s, shooting, squash, table tennis, tennis, weightlifting and wrestling. With the 2012 Olympic Games in London and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Commonwealth Games England is entering a breath-taking four years of sport.