Perth, Australia 1962
The VII Commonwealth Games are remembered for its “heat, dust and glory”. The day before the Perth Games opened the temperature was an expected 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but the heat was measured at 105 degrees at the opening ceremony in the new Perry Lakes Stadium the following day and such extremes persisted throughout the Games’ duration.
Thirty-five countries sent a total of 863 athletes and 178 officials to Perth and nine sports were featured at the Perth Games:
- Aquatics (diving & swimming)
- Athletics
- Boxing
- Cycling
- Fencing
- Lawn Bowls
- Rowing
- Weightlifting
- Wrestling
For Perth, the staging of the Commonwealth Games provided it with a springboard for phenomenal development in sport and recreation, centred around the sports facilities that were built for the Games.
What was noticeable for Scotland was the difference between their first trip to the Antipodes in 1950 and the second in 1962. The Games team which went to Perth, Western Australia, flew in minutes over 24 hours with all the UK countries travelling together in two Boeing 707 jets.
Conditions were idyllic and Perth's Village turned out to be 150 new bungalows, sited only 500 yards from warm, Indian Ocean beaches.
The boxers again came home with two golds and weightlifter Phil Caira repeated his success of four years earliery in the light-heavy division. The fourth gold went to fencer Sandy Leckie in the foil. But Dick McTaggart had to be content with silver this time as did Willie Lindsay in both shot and discus, and Bobby McGregor in the blue riband event of the pool.
The Scots struggled in the Athletics and Swimming events but on the whole the final total of 4 gold, 7 silver and 3 bronze was very reasonable.