’We need infrastructure’: Swimming set to miss out on Olympic dress rehearsal

Brisbane is set to buck the trend of Olympic cities hosting a major swimming event in the lead up to the Games. JULIAN LINDEN unpacks the impact of the state government’s belt tightening on the sport.

Mollie O'Callaghan is set to miss out on a chance to swim at a home world championships in Brisbane. Picture: Adam Pretty/Getty Images

Australia’s golden generation of swimmers could be retired before it gets to compete in a major international event in home waters after penny-pinching politicians blew the country’s chance to host the main dress-rehearsal before the Brisbane Olympics.

Although an announcement has not been made, sources say that Australia’s slim prospects of hosting the 2031 world championships have already been sunk and Spain is set to be awarded the sport’s last big global event in the lead-up to the Brisbane Olympics.

That means Australia’s record-breaking Dolphins will be forfeiting their home pool advantage and instead heading to Europe to finetune their preparations for an Olympics in their own backyard.

It also means some of the greatest swimmers to wear green and gold may never get the opportunity to race internationally at home because all their historic achievements will take place in foreign waters.

Singapore (2025), Budapest (2027) and Beijing (2029) have already been locked in for the next three editions of the world titles.

Ariarne Titmus is off to her second Olympic Games.

While the current Dolphins squad is considered to be the best ever, most will have retired by the time the Brisbane Olympics rolls around, robbing Australian fans of their chance to see them with their own eyes.

The swimmers have already lost their chance to swim at a home Commonwealth Games after the Victorian government abandoned its promise to stage the 2026 Games, while Swimming Australia’s slim hopes for getting the 2031 world championships were doomed from the outset because the country’s outdated facilities aren’t up to scratch anymore.

Swimming Australia pleaded with the government to fund a new aquatics centre for the Brisbane Olympics but its request has fallen on deaf ears.

Organisers instead are planning to construct a temporary pool.

That just doesn’t cut it for the World Aquatics championships, which include swimming, open-water swimming, artistic swimming, water polo, diving and high diving.

“We need infrastructure,” Swimming Australia CEO Rob Woodhouse said. “We don’t have that infrastructure anywhere.

“That’s why a legacy out of 2032, whatever that means or looks like, is incredibly important if we want to host international events both before the Games and after the Games.”

Emma McKeon is retiring after the Paris Olympics.

The sad reality of Australia’s ageing facilities is there for everyone to see at the Olympic trials currently taking place at Brisbane’s Aquatic Centre, which was built for the 1982 Commonwealth Games.

The pool has a capacity for around 4,000 spectators, which is fine for a state championship but pales in comparison to what other leading countries are doing for their Olympic trials.

The US is holding its trials, which start next week, in downtown Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium, which hosted the 2012 Super Bowl.

USA Swimming is using the trials to test the water for its most ambitious idea yet – to hold the swimming competition at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics inside SoFi Stadium, which has been used to stage the Super Bowl and Taylor Swift’s Era Tour concerts.

According to highly placed sources who were not authorised to speak publicly before an announcement expected later this week, SoFi Stadium will become the ultimate game changer for Australia’s favourite Olympic sport and should embarrass Brisbane’s officials for their unimaginative approach to staging the greatest show in world sport.

SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles will host the swimming events at the 2028 Olympics.

Swimming has grown into one of the most-watched Olympic sports – seen by billions of eyeballs on television sets in every corner of the globe – but the numbers that get to watch poolside are always down because too many host cities opt for cosy, restricted venues.

That will all change in 2028 because SoFi Stadium is a sporting and entertainment colossus that is the regular home of the two Los Angeles-based NFL teams, the Rams and Chargers.

Opened in 2020, it hosted the Super Bowl in 2022 and will do so again in 2027.

The sprawling venue typically holds 70,000 spectators but capacity was increased to more than 100,000 to accommodate Tay Tay’s Californian Swifties.

Originally published as ’We need infrastructure’: Swimming set to miss out on Olympic dress rehearsal