Weightlifter David Liti will carry the New Zealand flag into the opening ceremony of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, capping a personal journey that began with him watching another athlete do the same job eight years ago. The Games open in Glasgow this morning New Zealand time, with King Charles among the guests at the Hydro arena as the 23rd edition of the event gets under way after four years of doubt about whether it would survive at all.
Liti has been named as one of two flagbearers by New Zealand team chef de mission Nigel Avery. He takes the role of Pou Hāpai Tāne, the male flag bearer, while judoka Moira de Villiers has been chosen as Pou Hāpai Wahine, the female flag bearer. De Villiers will carry Te Kaunoti, the King’s Baton, into the arena alongside Liti and the flag.
For Liti the honour lands at his third Commonwealth Games and closes a loop that opened on the Gold Coast in 2018. “I think back to my first Commonwealth Games, when we went to the Opening Ceremony and I thought carrying the flag was a dream that would never come around,” he said, as reported by RNZ. “Fast forward two Commonwealth Games later and here I am with the same opportunity to represent everyone and uphold the standards of the athletes from the New Zealand team.”
He arrives in Glasgow as one of the most decorated members of the squad. Liti won gold in the men’s over 110 kilogram category on the Gold Coast in 2018, then took silver at Birmingham in 2022. A medal in Scotland would make him the first New Zealand weightlifter to reach the podium at three separate Commonwealth Games, and at this stage of a career that also takes in two Olympic appearances, he is as much a leader in the team as a competitor on the platform.
De Villiers said the call caught her by surprise. “When I got the call it was unbelievable,” she said. “This is a chance for me to represent not only my family and my club, but the entire nation and I think it’s such a special thing to be a representative for judo as well.” Her selection puts a less heralded sport at the front of the New Zealand procession, walking a step ahead of teammates from the more familiar disciplines of athletics, cycling and netball.
The pair lead a squad of 114 athletes who will compete across ten days in Scotland. It is the smallest team New Zealand has sent to a Commonwealth Games since Brisbane in 1982, a reflection less of the country’s form than of how much the event itself has shrunk. Glasgow is staging just ten sports, half the twenty on offer at Birmingham four years ago, after the organisers chose to reuse the venues built for the city’s 2014 Games rather than construct anything new.
That decision followed a scramble to save the Games at all. The Australian state of Victoria had accepted hosting rights for 2026 before pulling out over spiralling costs, and several cities passed before Glasgow agreed to step in on a stripped back budget. The trimmed programme has fallen hardest on events where New Zealand has traditionally done well, with rugby sevens, hockey, triathlon, cricket and squash all dropped from the schedule.
What remains still gives the team plenty to aim at. High jumper Hamish Kerr, the reigning Olympic champion, headlines the athletics contingent, while Ellesse Andrews returns to defend her Commonwealth sprint cycling title on the track. The Silver Ferns, two-time Commonwealth champions, carry the hopes of the netball following into a tournament that remains one of the few global stages the sport has left. Liti’s own weightlifting campaign in the over 110 kilogram class will be among the events New Zealand fans mark on the calendar.
All 74 Commonwealth nations are expected to take part, including debuts from Gabon and Togo, with Australia and England each sending the largest delegations of 264 athletes. The competition runs through to 3 August New Zealand time, taking in a few quirks along the way, with lawn bowls contested indoors for the first time and the men’s and women’s 1500 metres reverting to the imperial mile for the first time in sixty years.
For all the debate about the Games being a shadow of their former selves, the opening ceremony offered the reminder that they still matter to the athletes walking in. A weightlifter who once stood in the crowd dreaming of the flag now gets to hold it, and a judoka carrying the King’s Baton gets to put her sport at the head of the line. You can follow the opening night and the days that follow through RNZ’s live coverage and the wider guide to the Glasgow Games.
Are you planning to follow the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, and who are you backing to bring home a medal for New Zealand? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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