Vancouver is in the race to stage the Winter Games in eight years' time, with Hamilton widely tipped to hold the Commonwealth Games in the same year as a centenary edition, 100 years after the city laid on the inaugural event.

Doubts remain over whether two mega events in the same year would be feasible from a financial and logistical perspective, but co-Chef de Mission Claire Carver-Dias instead sees it as an exciting prospect.

"We see it as an opportunity," she said. 

"A Winter Games on the west side, and a summer-sport Games on the east side of Canada. 

"We're a huge country and 2030 could be the year of sport in Canada.

"So we actually see it as something exciting and to be sought-after rather than avoided."

Carver-Dias is a former artistic swimmer who won two Commonwealth Games gold medals and Olympic bronze during her career.

The Commonwealth Games Federation's new blueprint for its Games, which lists athletics and swimming as the only compulsory sports and allows for the event to be held across multiple cities and Villages, provides cost-saving incentives for Hamilton's bid.

"This is something that Canada wants and Canada needs," said Carver-Dias.

"Athletes will benefit from having another Summer Games in Canada.

"The organisers who are going to put forward the bid for Hamilton have some really innovative ideas about how they can create a Games that has a legacy."

Carver-Dias will share Chef de Mission responsibilities at Birmingham 2022 with Sam Effah, a sprinter who twice won the Canadian 100 metres title.

"We want to have a Games that not only uplifts us in sport but, coming fully out of a pandemic, hopefully by that time, is something that would be huge," said Effah.

"That would be the 100th anniversary as well so it would definitely make things extremely special."

For the full interview with Carver-Dias and Effah, click here.