Forty thousand spectators packed Eden Park for the opening ceremony of the fourth British Empire Games – the first staged since the Second World War.
This was the first of three times that New Zealand has hosted the event now known as the Commonwealth Games. Canada, England and Australia had held the first three games in the 1930s, and New Zealand was next in the pecking order of former dominions.
New Zealand’s first major international multi-sport event involved 590 competitors (including 95 women) from 12 countries and colonies. The march-past of athletes at the opening ceremony was headed by 1938 hosts Australia, with the 200-strong New Zealand contingent bringing up the rear. The athletes’ oath – they vowed to compete ‘in the true spirit of sportsmanship and for the honour of the Empire and for the glory of sport’ – was taken by 1930 javelin gold medallist Stan Lay, who was to place sixth in the event in 1950 at the age of 43.
Over the next week, nearly 250,000 spectators paid to watch 88 events (17 of them for women) in 11 sports at facilities across Auckland and at Karapiro in south Waikato, where a lake recently created as part of a scheme to generate hydroelectric power provided the venue for the rowing.
Most of the competitors were accommodated in cubicles at Ardmore Teachers’ Training College in south Auckland. Here the ‘normal, well-balanced New Zealand diet’ on offer – it included a lot of mutton – was so popular that the caterers were told to serve ‘slightly smaller portions’ so the athletes would not put on weight. The rowers at Karapiro did it tougher – some of them were housed in Second World War army huts.
While the games officially emphasised the bonds of empire and downplayed nationalism, the New Zealanders were pleased to finish third on the unofficial medal table, behind the Mother Country and perennial table-toppers Australia, who won nearly one-third of all the medals on offer. New Zealand’s individual star was all-round athlete Yvette Williams, whose best ‘broad’ (long) jump surpassed the winning distance at the 1948 Olympics. Williams also placed second in the javelin.
The hosts won more medals of any colour than England, and ranked above both Canada and South Africa, which had sent an all-white team. Few observers noticed that there were no Māori in the New Zealand team.
To cap the success of the games, the organising committee reported a profit of £24,686 (equivalent to $2.26 million in 2024).