On 24 January 1974, the 10th British Commonwealth Games opened in grand style in Christchurch. It took place in the purposely built QEII Stadium – the most modern of its type in the world at the time.
1276 competitors took part – 145 of those being New Zealanders. New Zealand won 9 gold, 8 silver and 18 bronzes medals. We were placed 4th on the medal table.
The youngest competitor was Kiwi swimmer Rebecca Perrot (representing Fiji) who was only 12 and half years old.
Christchurch was and remains the smallest city to host the televised games. The games were one of the first colourised broadcasts on New Zealand television – although only the athletics, swimming and boxing were showed in colour.
Sadly, QEII was damaged beyond repair due to the earthquakes of 2011/2012 and has since been demolished.
