Boycotts and Broken Dreams: The Story of the 1986 Commonwealth Games

The last time the Commonwealth Games were held in Scotland

there were sporting triumphs...

'As Liz Lynch takes the 10,000m gold for Scotland...'

'Cram gets the gold.'

'And Tessa - what a great competitor she is proving to be.'

..disappointments and disasters in the rain.

Got any flippers?

A Games full of political drama...

Nigeria and Ghana have both pulled out of the Commonwealth Games

which begin in Edinburgh later this month.

..of big personalities...

'Her car was pelted with eggs and tomatoes.'

..and even bigger egos...

'They are not Mrs Thatcher's Games -

'they are Edinburgh's, Scotland's Games.'

..and with some mysterious characters.

Dreams were fulfilled...

..and broken.

I am physically and mentally tired of being pushed around -

and I can't do anything about it.

A Games which helped change the fate of a nation.

Welcome to the story of the Commonwealth Games of Edinburgh,

1986.

Our story begins in 1970 with the Friendly Games.

It was the first time that the Commonwealth Games

had come to Scotland.

It was the first Commonwealth Games.

Up until Kingston Jamaica, the previous Games in 1966,

it had been the Empire Games and the Games went off spectacularly.

The whole Commonwealth attended.

It was a kind of sporting age of innocence, if you like,

and Scotland absolutely surpassed all expectations,

particularly on the track.

-COMMENTARY:

-'It's a one-two all the way for Scotland,

'and Ian Stewart wins from Ian McCafferty.'

Winning gold for Scotland to the cheers of the crowd -

this was the stuff of dreams.

For one young girl living in a council estate in Dundee,

it was the start of a journey that would change her life.

REPORTER: 'The atmosphere is depressing,

'transport into Dundee expensive,

'and a Whitfield address has almost become a stigma in itself.'

I was from a very underprivileged background

and I think kids from my block

didn't get an awful lot of opportunities.

I was 16 at the time, I'd just left school,

and I was working in a jute factory.

I was working from like half five in the morning

to five o'clock at night.

So, you know, I was kind of running

to prove that you could get out of the ghetto, sort of thing,

and to become something.

And it was a big drive in me to prove just how good I could be.

More than 9,000 miles away in Cape Town, South Africa,

another young girl shared that dream and ambition.

I was brought up in the northern suburbs of Cape Town

and my father was a physician, a doctor,

my mum used to drive me every day to swimming from there.

It was a very normal upbringing,

sort of, I'd say, middle-class, South African home

and, yeah, I've got wonderful happy memories of growing up.

I had a coach that coached me when I was 16, a guy called Harry Bennett,

and he actually said to me that I would win the Commonwealth Games.

So, from a 16-year-old, I had a belief that I was going to do it

and it will be my calling, and that I will be world-class at it.

But I've got to do the work now to enable me to get there.

From the time that I was ten years old,

when I realised that, you know, I had something,

and my coach, he was very encouraging.

He always said to me, you know, "You're going to be a champion,"

so I believed him and we sort of foolishly, as children,

thought it would just happen.

This background did install a lot of the, you know...

"I have to run for you," you know, "the people of Whitfield.

"I have to run for mum and dad."

You know, and I always had to have the sort of drive behind me

to show just what I could do.

I think there was a certain amount of natural talent

that happened at that stage, but obviously what followed after that

was a lot of hard work, you know?

Things don't happen without hard work.

But hard work would not be enough for Annette Cowley -

she had a problem.

She was living in a pariah state.

Since 1948, state-enforced legislation

segregated Black people from Whites

in all forms of South African life...

..prompting internal resistance and violence.

Black South Africans were forcibly removed from their homes

and deprived of basic human rights.

Almost 30,000 people were reported dead -

the outside world looked on in horror.

The fact that the South African government did what they did

with apartheid wasn't relevant to my family, because it wasn't our belief.

Our belief system was that we would have loved change in this country,

and we would have loved to have seen equal rights

But while apartheid continued,

it didn't matter what view Annette Cowley took

or how hard she trained - it would never be enough.

Even though we didn't necessarily believe in what our country stood for

at the time, we were obviously put into that pot.

Whether you were Black or White,

you weren't allowed to compete for South Africa.

The sporting ban imposed on South African athletes was global.

International competitions, like the 1984 Olympics,

were strictly off-limits.

Enter onto the world stage Zola Budd,

the barefoot running sensation from South Africa.

Her escape route - a UK passport,

secured because her grandfather was English.

It was a flag of convenience for Budd,

and for a British team desperate to boost their medal chances.

# The world is a stage

# The stage is a world of entertainment... #

The sudden appearance of this young, White South African

running in a Great Britain vest was not lost

on some of her Olympic team-mates.

Zola was for Zola.

She would never have given up

her citizenship as a South African.

She was going to go back to where she came from -

but it was just the knowledge of feeling that, you know,

why should you get it?

And, you know, another person who was as good, probably even better,

would not get the opportunity, mainly because they were Black.

'Barefooted, she's much happier barefooted.

'And the world champion caught her there, now this is the danger.

'And Decker's down!

'Oh, the world champion and one of the favourites

'is now flat-out on the in-field.

'And Mary Decker out of the race.'

DOUG GILLON: Zola Budd came here, prior to the 1984 Olympics,

basically on a ticket to win Britain a gold medal.

But there was a great feeling

that giving this girl a British passport just so that she could run

because her country had broken all the rules of morality and decency...

you know, there wasn't a great deal of sympathy for her.

'And the booing has started around the arena.

'Well, this little girl's career seems to be followed

'by nothing but controversies, and drama as well.'

ANNETTE COWLEY: We were all glued to that story in South Africa.

It was one of the biggest things ever

because, you know, our main goal as athletes at that level

was to go to the Olympic Games.

I think it's any athlete's dream.

If you're at the top of your game that's kind of where you want to go.

So I think it set the ball in motion, you know,

for people considering this sort of thing.

# Welcome

# Welcome to the wonder

# Welcome to the race for victory

# That's about to start... #

Los Angeles put a Hollywood spin on sport -

spectacular, glitzy and generating a whopping, out of this world,

400 million dollar profit.

There had been nothing like this before.

In Edinburgh, Commonwealth Games organisers started to dream.

They'd already organised a successful Games -

so just how difficult could it be?

Edinburgh was entitled to imagine

that they could recreate 1970.

That was the fond hope, and it was not an unreasonable hope.

The 1970 Games, essentially, were organised by a chap

called Willy Carmichael

who was seconded from the Edinburgh town council's cleansing department,

and he ran the Games from his kitchen table.

I mean, all that the city fathers needed to do in 1970 was -

and this is an exaggeration, but it kind of explains what went on -

all that they had to do was to get the money together

for the beer and the sandwiches.

Since 1970, a lot had changed -

including the Government's views on funding big events.

For many, many years it had been assumed

that anything that happened in Britain, Scotland or England,

had to be funded by the taxpayer.

And increasingly the Government of the day were saying,

"Look, no, that's just not right.

"You shouldn't expect the taxpayer to fund everything."

At the head of this government, Margaret Thatcher.

Single-minded, determined, the Iron Lady.

Her domestic policies had prompted the bitter miners' strike...

..while internationally the country had gone to war

over the Falkland islands.

The Commonwealth Games of 1986 was to become another battle front.

But the problem that Edinburgh had, they met -

and it's a dreadful cliche, but I'll say it anyhow -

they met a perfect storm.

They met the perfect storm of a Thatcher government.

The lady's not for turning.

The more that she was asked to support the Commonwealth Games

and to support the Commonwealth,

the more she set her mind against it.

This was essentially a genuine difference of view

within the Commonwealth as to how you best dealt with South Africa.

Some countries, mainly the African and Asian countries,

wanted very, very harsh economic sanctions.

Other countries, including the United Kingdom,

said, "No, you've got to have a dialogue with these guys

"if we're going to get peaceful reform."

And that created a difficulty.

At the centre of this "difficulty" - Mrs Thatcher.

It fell to the Commonwealth Secretary General,

Sir Sonny Ramphal, to seek a resolution.

You have to remember it was a particularly vigorous moment

in the campaign against apartheid,

and here was Mrs Thatcher, when all the world

recognised that sanctions were a particularly effective means

of bringing apartheid to an end, refusing to do it,

and refusing... Taking a strong ideological stand...

..on the side of South Africa.

Why do you want to stop many, many Black South Africans

from earning their living decently and looking after their families?

Why, as a matter of morality,

do you have people who have good jobs, comfortable homes,

who will be entertained in expensive hotels

to sit round a table and say, "As a matter of morality,

"we are going to decide that you in your hundreds of thousands

"shall lose your jobs

"in a country where we know there is no social security,

"so we will add poverty and unemployment

"to the rest of the problems"?

What is moral about that? To me it is immoral.

Mrs Thatcher's reasons were bound up with British interests,

British investment and therefore British assets in South Africa.

She was close to South Africa.

To White South Africa.

Mrs Thatcher's refusal to impose sanctions against South Africa -

and her view that the imprisoned Nelson Mandela

was associated with terrorism - was fiercely opposed in Edinburgh.

-Smash apartheid now!

-Stop the hangings, free Mandela!

Nelson Mandela, Madiba, was our hero.

He stood for justice and he stood for everything that we believed in,

so for him, a freedom fighter, to be called a terrorist

was really upsetting.

Edinburgh's record on apartheid was first-rate,

but that actually didn't count for very much

when Mrs Thatcher, who was a hugely divisive Prime Minister

in my opinion, had set her stall so firmly against economic sanctions,

against the Pretoria regime.

I wanted the whole country to rise up and say no,

but they still voted for her to come back in,

which meant to me... It implied this, the country, not the whole country

but the "state" supported the, the regime, the apartheid regime.

The arrival of South African runner Zola Budd

to race in Edinburgh in 1985 sparked controversy.

The city's high profile stand against apartheid

hit the headlines once more.

Channel 4 were

the televising company,

and, in keeping with the standard contract,

Edinburgh had agreed to provide a clean stadium -

ie, no advertising.

But up on the electronic scoreboard there was a sign,

"Edinburgh against apartheid".

And so, with minutes to go before the meeting started,

Channel 4 pulled the plug.

TEST-CARD BUZZ

The meeting was catastrophic for Edinburgh

because international athletics was then taken off the schedule.

So that was Zola's contribution to that.

Edinburgh's very public display of opposition

against South Africa's apartheid regime

was clearly aimed at the UK Government's position -

and it soon found support from an unexpected quarter.

The Queen takes, and then took,

being the head of the Commonwealth very seriously,

and she had excellent relations with all the leaders of

the Commonwealth,

and particularly with the former colonies in Africa.

And it was quite clear to us as this story developed

that the Palace itself, although not meant to take a view on anything,

actually had largely sided with those in the Commonwealth

that wanted to ramp up sanctions,

and particularly sporting sanctions, against apartheid South Africa.

I'm in an area of guesswork when I talk about the relations between

the Queen and Mrs Thatcher,

but if I had to guess...

I would say that... the debacle over the Edinburgh Games

would have caused... a rift between them,

a distancing between them,

because the Queen knew what I was doing.

-Good evening, Your Majesty.

-You've had a very long day.

-Yes...

'There was a rift between the two most important

'and two most famous women in the land,

'and that was a great story,'

because it started to hint and indicate that there were

bigger differences than just the future of South Africa between

the Queen and the Prime Minister,

that the Queen and the royal family had been...

not that keen on the miners' strike, had thought

that the Thatcherite approach to things

would rip apart the social fabric of the country,

and that a kind of radical government

was not good for the nation.

And now there was good reason for Palace concern.

In the months leading up to the Games,

the spectre of a boycott by Black Commonwealth nations was raised.

But the Iron Lady was not for turning,

and the spectre very quickly became a reality.

I remember once pleading with her to "save your Games",

because after all they were Commonwealth Games

being held in Britain,

and she answered me very sharply,

saying, "They are not my Games, they're yours."

And I came to believe in the end

that she really didn't mind if the Games were boycotted,

if Edinburgh paid the price.

Edinburgh she saw as her political enemy.

For the Edinburgh organisers, dreams of profit and surplus

disappeared as quickly as sponsors.

And to make matters worse,

there was no great rush at the Games' box office

to snap up the hottest ticket in town.

An awful lot of people thought, "This is going to be very, very easy.

"I mean, look at Los Angeles, they've made 400 million profit

"and all you've got to do is just ring up a few businesses,

"and they'll cough up the money, and it'll be absolutely no problem."

I can assure you it's not actually like that.

With a financial calamity looming, decisive action needed to be taken.

The ball was on the slates,

the Games weren't actually going to take place.

And they had to make a decision as to how they were

actually going to fill the financial gap.

Kenneth Borthwick, the Games chairman,

went through the Financial Times, picked out about 30 companies,

big companies in the UK, who he and the organisers thought

might support the Games financially, and fired off letters to them.

One of the people he wrote to was... was Robert Maxwell,

the publisher of the Daily Mirror and the Daily Record in Scotland,

and as it turned out he was the only one that replied.

MUSIC: "Notorious" by Duran Duran

# ..No, no, notorious... #

At his first press conference, the newly installed Games Chairman,

Robert Maxwell, explained how he was going to save the Games.

Listen, Jerusalem was not built in a day.

We've got quite a few weeks left,

we are going to do our business as you would expect me to do.

He stepped in. He was the knight in shining armour.

He was Mr Moneybags as well,

he was the man that would get it done.

He had run businesses, he knew how to get value for money.

He'd re-do the contracts, he'd be the front figure for it all

and just his dynamism and charm and power would sweep all before him.

And it meant he got onto the television

and the front pages of the papers every night.

For him it was a wonderful opportunity to grandstand.

Terry, before you start, would you allow me,

on behalf of the Commonwealth Games,

on the occasion of your birthday,

which your audience very rightly celebrated,

to present you with a pink bottle of champagne

in recognition of the great pleasure you give to millions of people.

-Oh, that's very kind of you. Thank you, Robert.

-APPLAUSE

'It was the gift that just kept on giving.

'You know, Bob Maxwell,'

to an extent -

but this isn't really what I mean - he was an idiot.

And you could goad him into being even more of an idiot.

And he spoke in headlines.

I mean, everything he said at that time was just headline gold,

so it was fantastic.

I loved it.

Do you think it's some way to becoming Robert Maxwell's Games now?

Well, I mean, that's...going from the ridiculous to the sublime,

or the other way around.

They are the Games of 50 nations.

3,000 sportsmen and women are attending it.

Five years of preparations have gone into it.

I have been called in to play a small part to help this task,

and I'm honoured and proud to do so.

MUSIC: "The Final Countdown" by Europe

In the midst of this chaos, athletes began arriving in Scotland.

But some were still finalising their plans, including the Bermuda team.

I was going through the summer

and preparing for the Commonwealth Games, running close to 10...

10.4s, 10.3.

Um...my expectation was to make the final.

Bill's team colleague, Victor Ruberry,

was also looking forward to competing in Edinburgh.

For my hundred breast, I was one of the faster ones in the Commonwealth.

I think I was in the top six, matter of fact, maybe even fourth,

but the other three ahead of me were all the fastest in the world,

second fastest, you know.

Some really... some really strong swimmers.

So I felt good that I had a chance of getting into the finals at least.

Some athletes were, you know, taking a year off to prepare.

Er...

Boycott wasn't even in the conversation, initially.

I would say just within the two-week span of going to Edinburgh

was...the issue of boycott came up.

But the issue of a boycott was of little concern

to the world's fastest middle-distance runner.

So I wasn't really getting hung up too much

on who wasn't going to be there.

Nothing was troubling me - it was really unusual.

I was...kind of waiting for something to happen,

even catch a cold or something,

because the weeks leading up to it, training was fantastic,

I ran two or three preparation races which were great.

In fact, I was having to hold myself back.

The teenage South African Annette Cowley

was also training hard and making progress.

Her times were fast - fast enough to win

a medal at the Commonwealth Games.

But to escape the apartheid sporting ban

she would have to take the same route as Zola Budd.

Annette Cowley had an English mother and a UK passport, which meant

she could compete for England.

But first she would have to qualify.

'They're coming into the last 5m

'and it's going to be Annette Cowley.

'Annette Cowley's going to be first, Nicola Fibbens is going to be second.

'Who's going to be third? I would say it was Annabelle Cripps, and it is.'

I swam in my main events, which was 100m and 200m freestyle,

and won both of those, and qualified to compete

at the Commonwealth Games, making the English team.

It was a moment that I felt very proud and very happy

because it was the first time that I knew I could go

and compete for my country, you know, my adopted country.

Even though I didn't live there, that was my heritage.

And I think I felt a sense of relief being able to know that

I could compete and finally do what I needed to do.

The path to Edinburgh and the dream of gold

was also well under way with the former jute worker from Dundee.

Liz Lynch was beginning to make her mark on the track scene,

running times that made her a real prospect for a medal.

But she was entering unknown territory.

The 10,000m was introduced at the Commonwealth Games in 1986.

I had to work out how I was going to qualify for that.

So the first qualification was the UK trials, which was the first time

a woman, a British woman,

had had the 10K championships at the trials.

And I won the trials, lapped everybody in the field.

And that's when I knew that I was in good shape.

There was great excitement about the fact that we could get

a Commonwealth gold, and I remember sort of feeling...

feeling quite a lot of pressure from that point of view, knowing that

my time was the best and, going into the Games, that it could happen.

So... But I was very focused and very positive.

Final preparations for the Games were under way -

then, all of a sudden, everything started to disintegrate.

MUSIC: "Don't Leave Me This Way" by The Communards

'Britain today felt the first reprisals from Black members

'of the Commonwealth over our policy on South Africa.

'Nigeria and Ghana have pulled out of the Commonwealth Games,

'which begin in Edinburgh later this month.'

'Good evening. Uganda announced tonight

'that it's boycotting the Commonwealth Games.

'It's the third Black African country to stay away...'

'Malaysia is the sixth country to decide against coming to Edinburgh,

'and would have brought 11 athletes...'

'Bangladesh has become the tenth nation

'to withdraw from the competition...'

'The boycott spreads - nine more Commonwealth states

'are out of the Edinburgh Games...'

'An ultimatum was sent to Mrs Thatcher

'demanding a definite promise of sanctions...'

'The Commonwealth Secretary General has made an appeal

'to save the Edinburgh Games.

'Sir Shridath Ramphal has urged compromise from Britain

'and from the countries planning to boycott the Games.

Well, I tried to broker a compromise, and the form it took

was of a statement to which both Africa and Mrs Thatcher,

and the rest of the Commonwealth, could subscribe,

er...which...

allowed for the condemnation of apartheid,

but also allowed for the role of sanctions.

There was fury in the Commonwealth,

particularly in the Black African countries,

that Britain alone could stand in the way

of a robust Commonwealth response to South Africa.

And a robust response mattered to the Commonwealth for two reasons -

one, it was an African country,

and that upset Black Africa more than anything,

and secondly it had once been in the Commonwealth.

It had been part of that family of nations and had now become a pariah.

I got African agreement and, had she come on board,

we would have got the statement

but, you know, quite frankly I came to believe at that point

that Mrs Thatcher didn't really want this statement.

She wasn't going to pay a price to save the Games.

Maybe she didn't even want to save them.

The number of boycotting nations continued to grow by the day.

The Games were facing cancellation.

And there was a shock in store

for the two White South African athletes,

Zola Budd and Annette Cowley.

The chairman of the Commonwealth Games Federation

has said this morning that the banning

of the South African-born Zola Budd and Annette Cowley

from the Commonwealth Games was totally justified.

Mr Peter Heatly said no political pressure

was brought on the federation.

The decision was arrived at not as a matter of expediency,

certainly not with any emotional or political intent,

it was purely as sportsmen playing to our own rules.

Well, I think they were sacrificed, weren't they?

The Games organisers, in a cowardly fashion in my opinion,

threw them to the lions essentially,

as a sacrifice, hoping that this would get the boycotting nations,

principally the African nations, back on board.

Zola Budd has been banned from the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh

later this month, is that good or bad news for Commonwealth sport?

I have heard... I have heard that too, it is a matter for those

who run the Commonwealth Games and not a matter for government.

Zola Budd accepted her fate.

But Annette Cowley held on to her dream of Commonwealth gold.

She took her case to the High Court in London.

Her counsel argue that Miss Cowley is here, that eventually

she intends to stay in this country,

and that's reason enough for her to be part of the English team

at the Commonwealth Games.

On the other hand, counsel for the Commonwealth Games Federation

describe Miss Cowley merely as a visitor,

since she only came to this country 60 days or so ago.

What do you think is going to happen tomorrow?

It's in the hands of my club at the moment, and the association.

Are you hopeful that you'll compete?

Yes, I am.

At that stage, the...there was such a circus in the media that

I remember being very, very scared about cameras following me

wherever I went.

I remember going into the Commonwealth Games village

and going into my room and looking around the room

to see if there were any cameras that somebody had planted,

because of just how big the... the story became at the time.

As the opening ceremony approached,

the number of boycotting nations grew.

One of those was Bermuda.

I think people were all types of emotions,

from anger...to shock, upset, sadness. After that,

what else could we do?

Is there something that we could do?

And that's when the next plan went into play,

where we had a protest sheet

saying that Bermuda athletes want to compete.

I don't know where we got the paint and everything, but we pulled sheets

off the beds from the dormitories and painted them.

We hung them out. It was a way of protesting.

We felt that we were pawns, that we had no say in any of this,

yet we were the ones who'd spent our lives,

our money, preparing to represent our country

and then, all of a sudden, we were being pulled out.

The idea came up, "Why don't we call the Premier of Bermuda?"

Which we did, and the question was put to him,

if the Bermuda athletes decided to compete,

would the Bermuda government support us?

And he responded by saying, yes, the Bermuda government would

support the team going out and marching in the opening ceremonies.

We stormed out of the village, getting ourselves dressed,

trying to put our ties on and everything else,

so that we can get our spot for the opening ceremonies.

And we marched then just before the host team that day.

'And Bermuda reinstated to the Games. There's been rumours all day

'about what they were going to do.

'First they were in, then they were out,

'and finally they were in again,

'and here they are, reinstated in the parade, marching out of order,

'but they rushed back to get changed.'

Walking into that stadium and how the crowd responded to seeing

the Bermuda team was nothing but a...

To me it was remarkable.

That was also an emotional moment.

'And the loudest roar of all will be reserved for Scotland.'

MILITARY STYLE DRUMBEATS

As soon as the bagpipes started playing it was like

every hair on the back of your neck stood up.

And when we were marching into the stadium,

the crowds were going crazy.

And I just thought to myself,

"This is immense.

"I've never experienced this." And I didn't prepare myself for it.

And it was just an absolutely fantastic experience.

And I now declare the 13th Commonwealth Games open.

CHEERING

# I'm ready for the action

# Where all the people gather round

# Many nations, lots of people

# Waiting to be found... #

I felt a sense of huge relief!

The Games had happened.

The majority of countries were taking part.

People had, for all practical purposes, forgotten the fact

there were a number of countries not represented.

A little bit of nerves for very obvious reasons.

It could have gone pear-shaped but fortunately it was OK on the day.

But Bermuda's involvement in the Games was short-lived.

When the athletes returned to the village,

they were ordered to return home.

I am physically and mentally tired

of being pushed around and can't do anything about it.

And, when I got the word today...

just couldn't do anything.

I'm just tired.

'I believe we left that day.'

I believe we, um, packed our bags and left the village

and caught a late flight back to Bermuda.

MUSIC: "Walk Of Life" by Dire Straits

The competing nations were reduced from 59 to 27.

Despite the impact of the boycott

and the financial calamity it had caused,

the lady who had turned her back on the Games

decided to pay them a visit.

I think you know my programme and I'm very happy with it.

Excuse me.

'Obviously, she was a strong supporter of the Commonwealth Games,'

strong supporter of the fact they were to be Scottish Games.

She was very worried as to what was happening

and of course, as Secretary of State for Scotland,

I kept her fully briefed on that

and it was raised at Cabinet on several occasions.

That would have been what she would have expected

and that's what happened.

They are not Mrs Thatcher's Games.

They are Edinburgh's, Scotland's Games,

the Commonwealth's Games - nothing to do with her.

Except, of course, if I end up with a deficit, then clearly

she can look forward to receiving some bill from this organisation.

I think that when Maggie came to the Games

it was kind of like she was trying to hijack the Games to her own...

er, gain, sort of thing. To show that, you know,

everything was supportive and everything was OK.

And I think that a lot of people

sort of thought, "Well, we're not going to support,

"and we're here for sport and that's what we're going to do."

And so we tried to stay out of the politics of it.

She was ignored by the athletes at the village,

despite the best efforts of her media minders

to kind of set up, you know, media opportunities

with glad-handing, you know, happy athletes in tracksuits.

They couldn't find any.

She wasn't a fan of Scotland

and Scotland certainly wasn't a fan of hers.

But she must have known that she was going to be in for

a pretty rough ride.

NEWSREEL: 'Her car was pelted with eggs and tomatoes.'

Thatcher, if nothing else, was very brave.

I mean, she was very brave to come to Edinburgh,

to spend an obligatory day visiting the Games,

because she had no interest

whatsoever in sport, none whatsoever.

With the Games under way,

it was time for the stars of track and field

to become sporting heroes.

SHE YELLS

The 800m provided the home nation with

an opportunity to strike gold.

'Tom McKean, who was running for Scotland, had a great chance

'and I knew that I had a tough race to run.'

So when I was standing on the start line, I didn't really have a plan.

That sounds crazy, cos I always had a plan in the 1,500.

The problem for me in the 800 was the guys were always quicker

through the first 100-150m than me.

'Steve Cram. Well, he is the competitor supreme.

'The World champion, the European champion,

'the Commonwealth champion at 1,500m, and now going for gold at 800m,

'his second event.

'The fastest man in the world this year.

'Away they go, McKean on the inside,

'then Cram, Hoogewerf, Forbes, Elliot, Scammell of Australia,

'Edwards of Wales, and Hoogewerf, the Canadian champion,

'has gone off very, very quickly as they approach the breaking point now.

'Steve Cram is going to settle down in last position.'

On the first lap, you then make some decisions,

because if you've six, seven or eight guys in front of you

then you're now thinking,

"OK, I've got to get into a better position than this."

So you're just waiting for the right opportunity to expend

the right amount of energy to sort of move through the field.

'And Cram beginning to move.

'It's Elliot of England in front, Scammell in second place,

'and Cram goes through now into third place, McKean not responding.'

It looks as though I'm accelerating and going past people.

It's just that if you compare down the back straight my 100m to theirs,

I'm just maintaining the same pace, but for them it was a lot slower.

So inevitably it looks like

they're going backwards and I'm going right through them.

'He's destroyed this field in a matter of yards.'

For me, that last 100m was a dream.

I was hitting the track hard, I was still really striding out,

I almost felt as though I didn't want the race to finish,

because I knew I was still running really strongly.

I knew that it was one of those occasions

where nobody was coming past, and it was a great feeling.

'Cram gets the gold.

'McKean of Scotland the silver,

'Elliot of England the bronze.

'1.43:22, the fastest time in the world this year.'

Every now and then you do something and go, "Wow. That was pretty good."

And I think that's how I felt at the end of that race.

I knew I had done something personally to me

which was important, because I'd won a gold medal,

and it was the way in which I'd done it as well. It just felt so good.

Over at the javelin final,

an epic battle was under way between two great rivals.

Fatima Whitbread threw first.

SHE YELLS

'Oh, she's really got behind that.

'That's a big throw, and that's just short of 70m,

'and I reckon that's the gold medal.'

TESSA SANDERSON: Fatima, oh!

I thought, "Oh, my God, Sanderson, she's stuffed you now."

I really did, I thought "This is it." You know, "I'm dead."

Just got myself focused together and just remembered

all that I'd been taught.

All that I know came up. Launched my javelin. It felt good.

But do you know what was brilliant?

The roar in the crowd.

It felt even a little bit more different than the Olympics,

because it was like everybody was going,

willing my javelin out.

Up there in that arena,

and it was like, "Whoooo!"

The noise was just incredible.

When I saw it land I thought, "That's got to be it."

And it was it, and it was the winning throw.

Well, hurrah!

I felt fantastic. Yeah, this is happening.

No regrets, nothing.

I love it, thank you, Scotland, this is great.

'Sheer, utter dismay for Fatima Whitbread.

'She led it with 65m 60cm,

'went to 68m 54cm,

'and I would think that most people in this stadium

'thought, "Well, that's it." Just as I thought, "That's it."

'But Tessa Sanderson had different ideas.'

I saw Fatima, she was sitting down on the side

and I felt a little bit for her in a sense,

because I thought that competition was going to be hers,

because, after that throw she'd done, it was a good throw.

But it's just that, you know, it was mine, again.

And I have to tell you, I loved it.

And there were other memorable moments.

Steve Redgrave won gold in every event he contested in the rowing.

'The victory wave from Steve Ovett again

'as he wins his first-ever Commonwealth title,

'and wins it easily.'

The Edinburgh weather played its part.

And the Games took its fair share of knocks.

ENDOFROUND BELL RINGS

But in the end, it lived up to its reputation as

a way of bringing together the people of the Commonwealth.

MUSIC: "Calling All The Heroes" by It Bites

Daley Thompson, the world's greatest all-round athlete,

almost brought the Games down on his own.

The main sponsor, Guinness,

threatened to pull the plug

when he scratched out their name from his running vest

because he was sponsored by a rival.

Lucozade - the refreshing glucose drink.

It was a Games full of highs and lows.

Of triumph and heartbreak.

On the final day, the home nation had only one gold

in the bowls and badminton.

Scotland's hopes were on the girl from Dundee.

My race was last on the track

and people were coming back to the village crying and disappointed

and it was really, really, really hard just to keep the focus.

I remember one of them...

I think it was Hilda Everett who was the women's team official,

and she came back and she said,

"Well, Liz, you know, you're our last chance."

And I just felt the weight of the nation on my shoulder

and it was something that I didn't want or envisage.

And I just thought,

"Yeah, I am the last chance of a gold medal here."

And, yeah, I just remember leaving the room and thinking,

"I'm going to do it."

'Liz Lynch is in a great position there.

'I think she's even tempted to take the pace on here somewhere,

'because she's running strongly, she looks very, very comfortable,

'and she's going to have to make a move here at some point.'

I actually knew from about 1,000m out,

2½ laps to go,

that I was going to win it,

because I felt really easy.

It was kind of like a two-lap victory run

and it was just really amazing

because the whole of the stadium was...

You just heard the noise,

and it just got louder and louder every step you took,

so it was a pretty amazing race for me.

CROWD CHEERS

'Is this the right thing to do? We'll soon know.

'They've got 800m left and Audain is not responding.

'And listen to this crowd.'

CHEERING

My dad was a really funny character.

He had this thing in his head

that he was a jinx if he watched me running.

So when I was running the race,

he actually left the stadium.

He went behind where all the seating was and walked out,

because he couldn't watch it, he was so nervous.

'Approaching the bell.

'And possibly approaching gold for Scotland.'

BELL RINGS

Either Mum or an aunt went and shouted to my dad and said,

"You need to come and see this

"because she's winning it and she's winning it easily."

'As Liz Lynch of Dundee Hawkhill Harriers

'takes the 10,000m gold for Scotland

'and smashes the British record by an enormous margin.'

So he actually did come back in

and watched the last sort of couple of laps,

which was really amazing for him.

Because even when he watched races in the house

he would walk out of the room, he wouldn't watch them on the telly.

It's really special, actually, seeing that now,

because my dad's no longer with me

and it really brings home just how close and how proud he was

and he just kept repeating to me all the time,

"You've did it, you've did it. My wee lass has done it."

'What a great moment for this girl

'and what a great moment for the host nation.'

'When she delivered this gold medal

it salvaged Scottish pride

and it announced a new name.

Every Games produces new heroes.

So Liz Lynch, Liz McColgan as she became,

was very definitely THE big heroine

of those Games in 1986.

The Commonwealth Games was the best moment in my running career,

simply because I could never relive the emotions of that day.

You know, I had a whole stadium packed that was shouting for you,

I had my family, my friends, my parents.

And I think just the whole emotions of receiving your medal

and winning your race,

it was just so immense.

And I always thought that when you won that was how you would feel.

Nothing ever lived up to that experience

on that day in 1986 in Edinburgh.

CHEERING

Despite a 32-nation boycott,

the Games had taken place.

Liz McColgan had won gold. Her dream had become a reality.

But what of the teenage Annette Cowley,

the South African swimming for England?

She had the fastest times in the Commonwealth,

a gold medal within her grasp.

Almost 30 years later,

she returned to Edinburgh and to the Commonwealth Pool,

scene of the 100m freestyle final,

her main event.

That was a very important part for us,

for weeks before a big race,

to swim the race over and over in our minds

until we had actually perfected every stroke,

every little inch of the race.

Take your mark.

By the time I stood on the block, I was incredibly confident

because I knew I'd trained harder than anybody,

and also mentally I was so incredibly well prepared.

'They're away.

'And Angela Harris, in lane number three for Australia, looking good.'

I was always the kind of person that liked to go out hard,

but you have to be focused on what you're doing

and not what everybody else is doing.

You have to focus on, really, what you've prepared for.

'Fibbens has taken over.

'Fibbens first to touch. 27.3. A good turn by Nikki Fibbens.

'The girl to watch just one lane down though,

'Jane Kerr, in lane four, from Canada.'

I was very seldom first at the turn,

but there was nobody who would touch me on the way back.

I wasn't going to let them.

'This is going to be a really fingertip finish!

'It is Jane Kerr of Canada who gets it!

'Angela Harris is second

'and Nikki Fibbens is third.

'But what a race that was.

'The winning time 57.62.'

No gold, no medal -

no final, even, for Annette Cowley.

Her dreams shattered - not in the pool,

but in the High Court just before the race.

Her bid for reinstatement to the Games thrown out.

The Cowley ban was the biggest story in town.

You know, you've got to have a certain amount of understanding

and everything happens for a reason,

although I'm just very disappointed. But I understand.

'There were cameramen tripping over each other

'cos everyone wanted the front-page pic and the story.

'And I just remember thinking

'"All I want to do is swim a race, you know?"

'It really was very, very tough and very disappointing.'

Soon after her return to South Africa,

Annette Cowley turned her back on swimming.

In Edinburgh, as the Games drew to a close,

the self-proclaimed saviour popped up once more.

Robert Maxwell was like a jack-in-the-box.

He kept on springing out of the box and shouting, "Surprise!"

So we're all sitting in the ballroom at the Sheraton hotel.

Maxwell emerged stage-right,

followed by a small Oriental gentleman.

And he's a good friend of Britain's,

the Commonwealth, and of sport,

and I'd ask you to give a hand

to this young man who travelled all the way from Japan to help us.

APPLAUSE

-DEREK DOUGLAS:

-Maxwell introduced this person as Ryoichi Sasakawa.

Yet another person who was going to be the financial saviour

of the Games. This multimillionaire was going to use millions of pounds

from his Sasakawa Foundation

to put £2 million into the Games coffers.

I will make my application in a formal manner

to the Sasakawa Organisation in Japan

and I am quite satisfied

that we will be positively received.

Sasakawa had provided 1 million to pay for the fireworks display

at the 1984 Olympics' closing ceremony.

But there were more sparks to come from the Japanese businessman.

-DEREK DOUGLAS:

-It subsequently became clear

that this man had spent a couple of years

in Allied prisoner-of-war camps

as a suspected war criminal.

You literally could not make it up.

All around the pay phones in the Sheraton hotel

you could hear journalists saying to their news editors,

"You are not going to believe this, but...!"

So, of all my memories of the Commonwealth Games,

the production of Ryoichi Sasakawa,

a suspected Japanese war criminal,

as a saviour of the Commonwealth Games, is...

Is the best, and still makes me smile to this day.

And I should add that, of course,

he didn't actually put his hand in his pocket at all.

FANFARE

On 2nd August 1986,

the Queen brought the curtain down at Meadowbank Stadium.

I proclaim the 13th Commonwealth Games, Edinburgh, 1986 closed.

But the story doesn't end there.

The Scotland standard-bearer had a problem,

and who else should come to the rescue?

Glory be, the saltire came off the flagpole

that he was carrying

and there was Robert Maxwell trying to salvage Scotland's dignity.

It seemed to me a microcosm of the way the Games had gone,

in terms of, you know, his involvement.

It was just utterly pathetic,

but derisorily amusing, I felt.

Did you put any of your own money into it?

Yes, I have put...

I've put some personal money,

but a great deal of money,

about a quarter of a million pounds in cash from the Daily Mirror,

and about £1 million in advertising to help launch the national appeal,

which by the way, so did the Express, the Financial Times,

the Daily Mail, and even The Sun did carry one free advertisement,

for which I must thank them.

However grudgingly. However grudgingly!

ANDREW NEIL: The moment the Games ended, we put on our best

investigative journalists to find out what had really happened.

And before long we discovered,

A, that he had put none of his own money into it at all,

that was something he never did.

That a lot of small businesspeople had been unpaid,

that companies were going bust because they hadn't been paid,

contracts were not being adhered to,

and that, in fact, he had been a bogus saviour of the Games

and in the end created more problems than he had inherited.

Robert Maxwell headed back to his newspaper empire in London,

leaving the Edinburgh organisers to pick up the tab.

Take care!

He left behind a debt of £4.9 million,

almost one third of the Games' entire budget.

Controversy plagued the Edinburgh Games of 1986,

as sport crossed swords with politics

in the struggle over apartheid.

But which prevailed?

How are the Edinburgh Games remembered by those who took part?

STEVE CRAM: The Commonwealth Games to me was such an important event.

For those of us who were brought up on it, watching it as a kid,

you sit glued to your television going,

"Wow, that could be me one day."

And then, a few years later, it is.

And you realise how important those moments are.

Yes, to yourself, but someone sitting watching it

somewhere in some part of the world

is probably thinking, "I'd like to be Steve Cram." It's great.

As sportsmen, the wanting, the hunger,

of wanting to do well in your sport no matter what.

And that's what the majority of us wanted to do

and I was lucky in getting there

and in achieving what I set out to achieve.

Winning the gold medal completely changed my life.

I went from Little Miss Nobody

to everybody wanting a piece of you.

When I won, it gave me that opportunity to say,

"The doors are open now and I can just go forward

"and live my dreams." And that's what it did for me.

The Games demonstrated that the pursuit of sporting excellence

could not be halted by politics.

But the boycott and the Budd and Cowley controversy

had focused attention again on the humanitarian scandal of apartheid.

By the time of the next Games in Auckland,

it would pay dividends.

REPORTER: 'There's Mr Mandela. Mr Nelson Mandela, a free man,

'taking his first steps into a new South Africa.'

With the end of apartheid,

the sporting ban on South Africa was lifted.

It was a move that resurrected Annette Cowley's sporting ambitions.

The 1992 Barcelona Olympics was her target.

I thought, "Right, after all this,

"I'm sure I'll be able to compete for South Africa."

So obviously my dream of the Olympic Games hasn't died.

I get back into the pool, get myself a sponsor,

I resign from my job to go back and swim full-time.

And, erm, I swam very well

at the South African national championships,

did my best times ever,

but apparently the selectors were told at the time

that they weren't allowed to pick me because I'd swum for England.

Do you feel you've got over it?

Oh, tough.

SHE CRIES

Reconciliation goes on in South Africa

and sport plays an important role in that process.

As a world-class swimmer,

but also a sporting symbol of apartheid,

is Annette Cowley now reconciled with her past?

When you look back and, you know,

with a bit more wisdom as we get older,

I understand that we were just part of such a bigger thing.

If we had to be political pawns at the time,

it was hard, but it's very rewarding to know

that it's contributed to change in our country.

I think sport's the most incredible thing for binding people

and for making change.

Although you want to say it wasn't a win for us maybe,

but in the long run it was a win for everybody, for this country.

The people of South Africa won in the end.