Well, here we are. The Commonwealth Games will officially start tomorrow in Glasgow.

The Opening Ceremony will be headlined by Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall. You may not know the name, but you’ll definitely know her most popular song, titled ‘Suddenly I See’.

If you don’t know where you know it from, cast your mind back to the opening scene of ‘The Devil Wears Prada’.

The ceremony will begin at 5am AEST. You can watch this year’s Commonwealth Games on Channel 7.

Five
The consecutive number of matches the Penrith Panthers have beaten the Parramatta Eels in. The two western Sydney rivals will meet tonight as the Panthers look to maintain their spot at the top of the NRL ladder and the Eels seek an upset victory boosted by the return of Mitch Moses. The match kicks off at 7:50pm.

"What has happened to make the WTA decide that this is the agenda they want to pick up and run with in the middle of the year?"
Australian former doubles world No. 1 Rennae Stubbs reacting to the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) updating its eligibility rules this week to require every player to take a one-time genetic test for biological sex. The women's tour, following a similar move by the International Olympic Committee, says the change protects fair competition. There are no transgender players on the women’s tour. The 55-year-old commentator made the comments on her podcast.

Christania Williams was the first athlete to compete at both the Summer and Winter Olympics for two different countries on different continents. The 31-year-old represented Jamaica, her country of birth, as a sprinter at Rio 2016 and won a silver medal in the 4x100m relay. Then, at Milano-Cortina 2026, Williams was in the two-woman bobsleigh competing for Austria.  

🏉 New Wallabies coach Les Kiss has named his first squad ahead of next month's two-Test series against Japan. Kiss recalled Queensland lock Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, who missed all three Nations Championship Tests, while Reds centre Isaac Henry has earned his first call-up. Henry replaces Len Ikitau, who is sitting out the series due to injury. Japan are led by former Wallabies coach Eddie Jones. The series begins in Osaka on 8 August before moving to Townsville a week later.

🚴 Belgian sprinter Jasper Philipsen claimed his first stage victory of this year's Tour de France, taking out Wednesday's 17th stage in a bunch sprint at Voiron. Philipsen finished ahead of Mauro Schmid and Olav Kooij to win his 11th career Tour stage. He is now within seven points of sprint leader Mads Pedersen with four stages remaining. Slovenia's Tadej Pogačar still holds the overall lead by more than four minutes. The Tour ends in Paris on Sunday. 

🤽 Australia's women's water polo team, the Stingers, are through to the World Cup semi-finals in Sydney after edging Italy 15-14 in a tight quarter-final at Sydney Olympic Park. Goalkeeper Gabi Palm was named player of the match after holding off a late Italian comeback, while Tilly Kearns top-scored with four goals. The Stingers will meet the United States on Friday night, a rematch of the 2000 Olympic gold medal game Australia won at the same pool. Australia’s men’s team, the Sharks, will take on reigning world champions Spain in the quarter-finals tonight.

🏉 Melbourne Storm five-eighth and Queensland captain Cameron Munster has been cleared to talk to the PNG Chiefs, the NRL's newest club, about a move for their 2028 debut season. His manager Braith Anasta confirmed the talks. The Storm, who have him until the end of 2027, still want to keep him. The Papua New Guinea side can offer tax-free salaries and have already signed playmaker Jarome Luai. The 31-year-old has said his next deal will likely be his last.

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Former Socceroos captain Paul Wade has revealed he has probable CTE, a degenerative brain disease he links to years of heading the ball. The 64-year-old played 84 games for Australia and captained the side 46 times.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a progressive brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head, even minor ones that cause no obvious concussion. 

It has been linked to boxing, rugby, American football, Australian rules football, and years of heading the ball in soccer.  The disease can only be confirmed after death, so a probable diagnosis is the strongest diagnosis available to a living patient.

Heading was Wade's trademark, and he says he did it far more than the average player. "My job... was to smash a ball with my head," he said. He told the Today show that his memory had always been bad but his wife and family pushed him to see a specialist after noticing changes in his mood. 

Concussion expert Dr Rowena Mobbs diagnosed Wade with probable CTE in late 2025 and told him that the disease was terminal. Wade went public with the diagnosis this week through a statement released by Professional Footballers Australia, the players’  union representing  Australian soccer players.

Wade is now speaking out to push for change. He told the Sydney Morning Herald: “I just want people to know that if you want to continue to do thousands of headers, these could be the consequences. And for those who are making the rules or should be applying the protocols, do it. Do it now.”

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The Commonwealth Games open in Glasgow tomorrow (AEST), and for Australian fans there is an extra thread to the story: these Games were meant to be held here.

Here is what to know before the action begins.

Glasgow will be hosting the Commonwealth Games from 23 July to 2 August. The Scottish city stepped in as a late replacement after the event was originally awarded to regional Victoria, spread across hubs including Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. 

However, the Victorian Government pulled out in July 2023, with then-Premier Daniel Andrews saying the cost had climbed from a budgeted $2.6 billion to as much as $7 billion. Victoria later agreed to pay organisers $380 million to exit the contract.

Given there was not enough time to build new infrastructure following the change of location, Glasgow is instead delivering a scaled-back event. Ten sports will be featured this time, down from 17 sports when the city last hosted in 2014 and 18 at the 2022 edition in Birmingham. 

The program covers athletics, swimming, track cycling, artistic gymnastics, netball, boxing, judo, weightlifting, bowls and 3x3 basketball. 

Para-athletic events are built into the program rather than running as a separate competition, with para medals counting towards the same national tally. Six sports will include para competition: athletics, swimming, track cycling and bowls will each feature para events, while weightlifting will include para powerlifting and 3x3 basketball will include wheelchair basketball. Organisers say it will be the largest para sport program in Commonwealth Games history.

Meanwhile, cricket, hockey, rugby sevens and diving are among the sports left off this year’s schedule.

Most of the 86-strong team is made up of swimmers, as well as track and field athletes. The pool squad includes Olympic champions Mollie O'Callaghan, Kyle Chalmers and Cam McEvoy, who broke the 50m freestyle world record in March. 

In track and field, Australia’s pole vaulters Nina Kennedy and Kurtis Marschall will both look to defend their titles, while several rising stars will take to the track, including middle-distance runner Cameron Myers and sprinter Torrie Lewis, who set a new national record in the women’s 100m earlier this week. 

However, the gold chances are not limited to those two sports. Australia's women's netball team, the Diamonds, are chasing back-to-back titles. Meanwhile, our team of 25 cyclists includes six gold medallists from 2022, among them Georgia Baker, who took home three. In judo, Aoife Coughlan and Tinka Easton both return to defend titles they won at Birmingham, while gymnast Georgia Godwin will look to defend her all-around CommGames crown after injury ruled her out of the Paris Olympics.

Australia heads into the event as the team to beat, after topping the medal table at the past two Games, as well as  at every edition bar one since 1994. This time the aim is a third straight Games on top of the tally.

The Games will be live and free on Channel 7 and 7mate, with every session also streaming free on 7plus. 

The catch for Australian fans is the time difference. Glasgow runs nine hours behind the Australian east coast, so heats and early rounds will screen in the evening from about 7pm AEST, while the finals sessions, where most medals are decided, will be in the early hours of the morning from roughly 3:30am to 7am AEST. 

The opening ceremony airs on Friday morning from 5am AEST.