Two-time Commonwealth champion believes next year’s Games will make their mark on and off the track as the search for volunteers begins

The city of Birmingham, and the Commonwealth Games, have had a huge impact on Colin Jackson’s life. The former 110m hurdles world record-holder first announced himself in senior athletics when winning silver during the Edinburgh Games back in 1986, while he then brought an end to his remarkable career in the West Midlands at the World Indoor Championships of 2003.

With a little over a year to go, the two-time Commonwealth champion can see the Birmingham 2022 Games providing the very real opportunity to change the lives not just of the athletes who will compete, but also the 13,000-strong army of volunteers who will help to make sure the show goes on.

Jackson was speaking as the volunteer application process opened this week and the subject of the Commonwealth Games allowed him to look forward to what he expects to be a fantastic occasion next summer, but also cast a glance back at how the event helped set him on his way towards global success.

“It was really my announcement into senior athletics,” recalls the former world champion of his appearance at Meadowbank Stadium 35 years ago. “I had won the World Junior Championships about 10 days before I went to the Commonwealth Games so people had seen me run in a junior field but there’s always that question of: ‘Okay, he’s great in the juniors but can he do it in the senior competition?’.

“I remember [former Olympic champion] Mark McKoy, who was the defending champion at the time when he kind of first stumbled upon me. At the time he was like: ‘Okay, I read about this kid but is he really any good? Well I pushed him quite closely and then he was like: ‘Okay, he’s the real deal’.

“So you can see that the Commonwealth Games gave me a really great platform to really boost my career.”

Jackson believes there is still a real desire among the athletics community to be a Commonwealth champion and insists the rare opportunity for British athletes to compete for England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland adds a powerful extra dimension on an off the track.

“What tends to happen is that you get mums, dads, nans, aunties who will take the trip because it’s the home games,” he says. “It’s one of the few opportunities where you can see your family members at really close quarters in a championship situation so I think it’s going to be a popular championships here in the UK.”

The work of the volunteers, who have been a huge feature of recent major events on British shores, will add to that popularity. The “Games Makers” of the 2012 London Olympics created a momentum which carried into the Glasgow Commonwealth Games two years later and, as Jackson points out, it’s those who willingly give up their time who tend to set the tone.

“It’s one of the things that Britain is recognised across the world for – we’re always celebrated for our volunteering skills,” he says. “Right now, if you go into vaccine centres, you’ll see the volunteers there just putting their time and effort into making it a nice time for you and I feel that exactly the same thing will happen for Birmingham.

“It’s a target of 13,000 people we’re looking at [for volunteering], and that’s people from across the world. We also want people locally, because we want people to have a sense of: this is Birmingham. Birmingham and the West Midlands has got one of the most diverse communities in the country.

“Literally everybody in the Commonwealth will be represented in the West Midlands. You add to that the fact that the volunteers are there because they want to do it, so they enjoy it and they create an ambience of ‘we’re having a good time, it is the friendly games and we’re going to make the friendly games outstanding’.”

The athletics action in Birmingham will centre around Alexander Stadium, which is currently being rebuilt for the occasion, and there’s a part of Jackson wishing that he could lace up his spikes and join in again.

“Alexander Stadium has got so many incredible memories for me,” he says. “It’s first place I went under 13 seconds, and beat Roger Kingdom on home turf, which was just brilliant to do.

“As for the city, I retired here at the world indoors, and the city gave me a beautiful, beautiful presentation. I had this massive card which was signed by all the volunteers and the officials and that’s in the cupboard with my medals. It stands behind them all and it’s just an incredible memory of my career.

“Birmingham is very much close to me and my athletic career as well.”