Opinion: Temporary pool for Brisbane 2032 Games is shortsighted

An awkward reality of Brisbane’s 2032 Games plan will come back to bite us in 10 years, writes Mark Stockwell.

An artist's impression of Brisbane Arena configured for the 2032 Olympics under the Live Nation plan

Brisbane will host a great Olympics and Paralympics. We’re just sorry there’s no Olympic and Paralympic pool of dreams anywhere for you to swim in or for those who follow you.

That pool at Brisbane Live, where you sat in green and gold and cheered home a gold medal in Australia’s most successful Olympic and Paralympic sport, was dismantled. Those surroundings of inspiration so imprinted on the nation’s psyche during the swimming competition in Brisbane in 2032 don’t exist any more.

This is not a conversation anyone in Brisbane should want to have 10 years from now. Brisbane will host a great Olympics and Paralympics. If that is all you want from 28 days of competition by the world’s best, let’s build a temporary pool, pull it out again and be left with nothing.

So much more is achievable. Swimming is Australia’s number one participation sport. From Noosa to Coolangatta there are more Olympic, Paralympic and World championship medallists produced than any other region in the world.

All the while, Queensland has to evolve its economy and build tourism to get into events. It would seem crazy to miss the opportunity to turn Brisbane and South East Queensland into a fair-dinkum events economy. There’s nothing in the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic bid document that delivers a place. Should it not be a beautiful piece of architecture for a 10,000-seat swimming venue? At one end, you put in the extra 5000 seats on a temporary basis for the Olympics and Paralympics.

An artist’s impression of Brisbane Live arena, which will host swimming

We can then be known around the world as the place to come for anyone and everyone who wants to improve, innovate and develop in aquatic sports. This will then provide the impetus to develop the best in aquatic innovation, coach training, sports science, biomechanics, nutrition and equipment development.

In staging the Olympics and Paralympics, the biggest legacies should be sporting and physical. That should be the No.1 legacy, building the capacity of all the Olympic and Paralympic sports in this country.

The first query will be this – Isn’t such a 10,000-seat venue the very definition of a white elephant?

If you create an events strategy, it won’t be a white elephant. This is not a suggestion to build a 10,000-seat venue for table tennis or team handball. For those sports, you do have a temporary facility.

Aquatics is our No.1 Olympic and Paralympic sport in Australia. We are going to win more medals in the pool than anywhere else in 2032. Swimmers won nine of Australia’s 17 gold medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Swimming and diving shared 21 of Australia’s 46 total medals. We have a storied heritage in aquatics. And it’s Queensland.

Our “Olympic aquatics centre” should mean a home for swimming, diving, artistic swimming and water polo. All the head offices of those sports can potentially discuss a modern new home in Brisbane. You create the daily events tourism. Kids from all parts of the state and country can say this is where the Olympics and Paralympics were held in 2032. Here’s the museum, here is the Swimming Hall of Fame.

A venue of this quality allows you to bid for World Championships, the Pan Pac titles, the Duel In The Pool, Water Polo and Diving World Cups and so on. Young athletes and aspiring Olympians and Paralympians get to see these top-class aquatic events. If you can’t see it, you can’t be it.

The pool at Brisbane Live arena will be dismantled after the Games.

If we are serious about the Queensland economy, this should be discussed. Expo 88 happened and South Bank arrived. It took a long time to get it right, but today Brisbane has a world-class cultural, entertainment, leisure, residential, commercial and multi-use tourist destination that we are all proud of.

Swimming, diving and winter sports get a lot of value out of Chandler Aquatic Centre. Chandler definitely needs to keep going, especially with the residential growth in the eastern corridor of Brisbane. But right now, you can’t even have everyone from your school turn up to the GPS or AIC swimming carnivals at Chandler. Schools are restricted in numbers because Chandler seats only 4500.

We need Brisbane Live. Build it. It’s a great idea for a multipurpose entertainment and sporting arena in Roma Street. Just don’t build it over four operating rail lines, it’s too expensive.

If you are serious about broadening the economic base of Queensland through event tourism, serious about the health of this nation and serious about creating events so kids can see the pathway in their pool sports, you build the 10,000-seat aquatics centre.

Here’s one option. State government-owned land exists at Victoria Park/Barrambin, on the Spring Hill side of the railway line adjacent to the Centenary Pool. You can walk to the Valley, you can walk to the City. You have a railway line already there.

Let’s put money into that whole participation-inspiration-activity business with the vision of a new Brisbane Aquatics Centre. The multiplier is huge in so many ways.

Mark Stockwell is an Olympic-medal-winning swimmer and former chair of the Organising Committee for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games