Tuesday, 27 September, 2022
The 2032 Olympics will catapult southeast Queensland onto the world stage, but there’s a long way to go before the region will be ready to meet the demands of hosting the Games. Organisers have pitched the sporting spectacle as a more sustainable and cost-effective event that will leave a meaningful legacy for the growing region. “You literally couldn’t buy the type of name recognition that the Olympics would bring to a city,” Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner told the ABC.
An artist’s impression of the opening ceremony at the Gabba. (Supplied: Queensland Government)
Over the next 11 years, authorities will pour major resources and money into transforming Brisbane into a new world city — though the full cost is still unclear. Utilising venues new and old The 2032 Olympic master plan includes three main hubs in the state’s southeast corner, which will host 28 sports split across them. There will be 21 venues in Brisbane, seven on the Gold Coast, and four on the Sunshine Coast. Football preliminary matches will also be played in Cairns, Townsville, Toowoomba, Sydney, and Melbourne.
The Gabba will be the jewel in Brisbane’s Olympic crown, hosting the athletics as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. The stadium is due for a $1 billion rebuild that will increase its capacity to 50,000 spectators. As part of its ‘New Norm’, the International Olympic Committee has scrapped costly old rules requiring sports to have their own purpose-built facilities.
Cr Schrinner said it meant 84 percent of venues for the 2032 Games would be existing, refurbished or temporary. “This is not so much about building new facilities or stadiums or sporting arenas — it’s about trying to use what we’ve got or upgrade what we’ve got,” he said. “We have seen other cities just throwing endless amounts of money at the Olympics — that’s not the way we’ve pitched it for Brisbane.” But there are some major new venues in the pipeline, including a 15,000-seat aquatic centre in the Brisbane CBD, to host swimming and water polo.
The master plan also includes a new 12,000-seat indoor basketball facility, a 10,000-seat gymnastics venue and a boxing centre at Moreton Bay. The main athletes’ village will be built on prime Brisbane waterfront real estate at Hamilton, with smaller accommodation options on the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Kooralbyn, near the rowing venue.
ABC News July 2022
Tags: 2032, Brisbane Olympics, Olympics
Posted in Press Clippings
