Commonwealth Games Begins Tonight

Sir Chris Hoy says Glasgow will deliver “The biggest and best Commonwealth Games we’ve ever seen”, ahead of the opening ceremony tonight.

About 4,500 athletes from 71 nations will take part in the 20th edition of the Games, which run until 3 August.

“It’s going to be spectacular,” said Scotland’s six-time Olympic and double Commonwealth champion.

Swimmer Michael Jamieson, a big Scots medal hope, added: “You can already see there’s a buzz around the city.”

The 25-year-old silver medallist from the 2012 Olympics, who is chasing 200m breaststroke gold on the opening day of action on Thursday, said: “It’s known as the friendly Games for a reason. It just has such a great feel about it.”

The reputation of the Commonwealth Games was damaged by the 2010 Games in Delhi, which were plagued by poor ticket sales and problems with venues and accommodation.

Organisers were forced to give away thousands of free tickets after seats remained unsold, but that still could not prevent images of half-empty venues being beamed around the world, but Hoy is confident there will be no repeat in Glasgow.

“We’ve been ready for the last year and a half,” added the former track cyclist, who retired in 2013. “Everyone’s desperate to get started.”

Commonwealth Games Scotland chairman Michael Cavanagh added: “There’s an enormous buzz in Glasgow and that’s just going to continue.

“It’s going to be absolutely fantastic and the opening ceremony will be extraordinary and get us off to a terrific start.”

Glasgow began preparing for the Games, which features 18 sports across 11 days of competition, in 2007, when it beat Nigeria’s capital Abuja in the vote to stage the event.

Commonwealth Games-related contracts worth £401m have been awarded, Glasgow City Council has revealed, while there were 2.3m requests for tickets when the first one million went on sale last year.

“The Games will be delivered, to the relief of us all, within budget,” said Scottish first minister Alex Salmond.

“To spectators, they will be the most affordable Games ever.”

He said that London had set “a very high bar” when staging the 2012 Olympics but added: “It will be our task over the next 10 days to see if we can leap over that bar.”

There will be some big names missing from the Games, though, because of a combination of injury, choice or other circumstances.