The Commonwealth Games is an international, multi-sport event involving athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930 and takes place every four years.
It was initially known as the British Empire Games and was renamed to the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in 1954 and the British Commonwealth Games in 1970, before finally gaining its current title for the 1978 edition. The Games are overseen by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), which also controls the sporting programme and selects the host cities. A host city is selected for each edition and eighteen cities in seven countries have hosted the event.
As well as many Olympic sports, the Games also include some sports that are played mainly in Commonwealth countries, such as lawn bowls, rugby sevens and netball. Only six teams have attended every Commonwealth Games: Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales. Australia has been the highest achieving team for eleven games, England for seven and Canada for one.
The Honourable Usain St. Leo Bolt, OJ, C.D. ( /ˈjuːseɪn/; born 21 August 1986), is a Jamaican sprinter and a five-time World and three-time Olympic gold medalist. He is the world record and Olympic record holder in the 100 metres, the 200 metres and (along with his teammates) the 4×100 metres relay. He is the reigning Olympic champion in these three events, and is one of only seven athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jacques Freitag, Yelena Isinbayeva, Jana Pittman, Dani Samuels) to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event.
Bolt won a 200 m gold medal at the 2002 World Junior Championships, making him the competition's youngest-ever gold medalist at the time (since surpassed by Jacko Gill). In 2004, at the CARIFTA Games, he became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 m in less than 20 seconds with a time of 19.93 s, breaking the previous world junior record held by Roy Martin by two-tenths of a second. He turned professional in 2004, and although he competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics, he missed most of the next two seasons due to injuries. In 2007, he broke Don Quarrie's 200 m Jamaican record with a run of 19.75 s.
Kirani James (born 1 September 1992) is a Grenadian sprinter who specializes in the 200 and 400 metres. He is the reigning 400 metres world champion.
Prodigious from a young age, he ran the fastest 400 m times ever by a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old. He won a series of gold medals at the CARIFTA Games and the Commonwealth Youth Games and rose on the international stage with 400 m silver medals at the 2007 World Youth and 2008 World Junior Championships. James became the first athlete to run a 200/400 double at the 2009 World Youth Championships and was the 2010 World Junior Champion.
He gained an athletic scholarship at the University of Alabama and won back-to-back NCAA Outdoor Championship titles in his first two years. James is the third fastest of all-time indoors (44.80 seconds) and ran a personal best of 44.36 at the 2011 IAAF Diamond League in Zürich.
At the age of 14 James won the gold medal in the 400 m at the 2007 CARIFTA Games in the under 17 category with a time of 47.86 seconds. He went on to win a silver medals at the 2007 World Youth Championships with a time of 46.96 s a time which is the fastest run by a 14-year-old.
Amy Macdonald (born 25 August 1987 in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire) is a Scottish recording artist. Macdonald rose to fame in 2007 with her debut album, This Is the Life (2007) and its fourth single, "This Is the Life". The single charted at number one in six different countries worldwide, and charted inside the top ten in another eleven countries worldwide.
The success of the single achieved Macdonald success in the American music market, where she was a guest on shows such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson in 2008, where she performed two singles from the album, leading her album, This Is the Life to reach ninety-two on the Billboard 200. In the European Union, This Is the Life reached number one in six European countries, including the United Kingdom, Denmark and the main European album charts. This is the Life has sold three million copies worldwide.
"Don't Tell Me That It's Over" was released in March 2010 as the lead off single from Macdonald's second studio album, A Curious Thing which was released on March 8, 2010. Five singles have since been released from A Curious Thing. The album's lead single, "Don't Tell Me That It's Over" was released worldwide on March 1, 2010 and this was followed by the release of a second single "Spark" on May 10, 2010. Further singles were released, with the third being "This Pretty Face" which was successful in European countries such as Germany, where MacDonald holds a strong fanbase. A further two singles were released, "Love Love" and "Your Time Will Come" which were both released in late 2010. Worldwide, A Curious Thing, the album has sold 1,000,000 copies worldwide.