Editorial: Matilda’s Games show possibility for 2032

When the six-tonne Matilda winked at the opening ceremony crowds of the 1982 Comm Games, it was a single moment that in many ways heralded the start of modern-day Brisbane, writes the Editor.

Mascot Matilda at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. Picture: Ex Brisbane Sun

Exactly 40 years ago today, readers of The Courier-Mail woke to the headline “The ecstasy of winning” next to a full-page front-page image of Raelene Boyle “floating to victory on the wings of sound” in the final of the Commonwealth Games 400m at what was then QEII stadium at Nathan, in Brisbane’s south.

Queenslanders, then, woke that morning in excited anticipation of what the fifth day of competition would bring, confident of at least a few more gold medals to add to the 20 already won since the 13m-tall, six-tonne Matilda had winked at the opening ceremony crowds – a single moment that in many ways heralded the start of modern-day Brisbane.

Queen, Matilda and Lisa Curry: 1982 Brisbane Comm Games in pictures

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Before those magical 10 days of sport when, for the first time in our history, “the eyes of the world” were on our city, we had been the classic big country town – a place where, as former lord mayor Sallyanne Atkinson remembers “we’d have tea at 5.30pm then listen to the radio and off we went to bed”. We perhaps – let’s be honest – deserved the jokes that those in the southern states made about us, like the one about how when visiting Queensland during daylight saving time you had to turn your watch back 10 years.

News/sport 30/9/1982 Brisbane's Commonwealth Games mascot Matilda the kangaroo glides around the track at the opening ceremony at QEII stadium. The Courier-Mail Photo Archive.

But after the success of those 1982 Commonwealth Games, we started to shake that chip off our shoulder – and gained the confidence to bid, successfully, the next year to host the World Expo in 1988. That six-month event is often referenced as the one that changed our state forever, when we discovered the appeal of outdoor dining, staying out after dark – and the revelatory fact we had a river in the centre of the city. But as Ms Atkinson so aptly puts it: “If Expo was our 21st birthday party, the Commonwealth Games was our 18th.” That is, that was the moment we grew up.

And so it will be with the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games. Those four weeks of sport in nine and a half years from now will surely be the most significant moment in our state’s modern history – and, just like the Commonwealth Games 40 years ago this week, a pivot point.

We don’t yet know exactly how and what hosting the Games will change – just as nobody could have imagined that you could now draw a straight line from those 1982 Games to the development of South Bank, and the revelation that late-night dining could be more refined than a Chiko Roll from the Windmill Cafe on Petrie Terrace.

The truth is you usually can’t predict, or engineer, what things of enduring significance these big events will change.

The national conversation about our First Nations history, for example, was forever altered for the better by Cathy Freeman’s courage in both truth-telling about her Indigenous heritage and her stunning gold medal-winning performance at the Sydney Games. That was a natural consequence of an unforgettable personal story playing out against the backdrop of a nation ready for that conversation.

But equally, we must not take legacy for granted when it comes to the Brisbane Games. There is only one Cathy Freeman, after all.

And so this coming decade will be a once-in-a-forever opportunity for our capital city, its region and our state as we prepare to host the biggest show on Earth. We must all work to ensure the community, the private and the public sector come together to take full advantage of it.

This is, after all, about so much more than just four weeks of sport.