Brisbane Olympics 2032: Winter event could revolutionise Olympic sport forever

World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe has big plans for the future of athletics in Olympic competitions, with Brisbane’s winter scheduling the perfect instigator to a revolutionary idea.

The funky timing of the Brisbane Olympics has given one of the most unconventional thinkers in world sport a left-field idea that could revolutionise the biggest events on the planet.

Scheduled to take place from July 23-August 8, 2032, lost in the fine print is the fact the Brisbane Olympics will be just the second Summer Games ever held in Winter.

Like the balmy 2016 host Rio de Janeiro, Queensland’s coldest season isn’t exactly woollen scarfs and beanies weather but it’s still a seismic shift from Olympic tradition that has given fresh legs to a radical proposal from World Athletics president Sebastian Coe.

How the Gabba will be transformed for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.

World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe.

As a former Conservative in the British parliament who has been bestowed the posh title of a Lord, Coe doesn’t fit the profile of an insurgent but in the slow-moving world of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), he’s a rebel with a cause.

And one of the issues closest to his heart is climate change – and the impact it has on high-performance athletes.

Because the biggest athletics’ events are always held in Summer, the physical toll on competitors can be excruciating, particularly for endurance runners, and Coe wants to shake things up a bit.

“Climate change is here. Whatever the greenwashing conversations that take place at COP (Conference of the Parties), I‘m afraid we are not hitting any of these targets,” Coe told News Corp.

“From my humble position as a federation president, I‘m not a scientist or climatologist, but it’s pretty clear to me we’re not going to hit these targets, and we have to think quite hard about ‘what is our response going to be to this?’

“We‘ve got to be clear that athlete welfare is really important.

“Those of us that are really working quite hard in the field to make a difference, believe you can make a difference but at the moment, politicians are not quite caught up with where I think the public sentiment sits.”

The Tokyo Olympics marathon was moved to a cooler climate.

Other sports officials have finally started to take notice.

Both the men’s and women’s marathon at the rescheduled 2021 Tokyo Olympics were moved away from the scorching Japanese capital to Sapporo, the host city of the 1972 Winter Olympics and more climate-events are coming.

The athletics world championships have never been held in the southern hemisphere but with Brisbane locked in to host the Olympics and Paralympics, it seems only a matter of time before the sport’s showcase event is held in Australia – and when it does, you can bet it will be the first to take place in Winter.

“Clearly, a world championships at some stage in Australia would be fantastic. We want more events here,” Coe said.

“The athletics component of multi events, whether it‘s an Olympic Games back in Sydney or the two Commonwealth Games and a third quite soon I’ll have witnessed, tells me that you do deliver events very well.

“For a Brit to concede that is fulsome but you do, you‘re world class at this sort of stuff. There’s a pathway over the next decade for Australian sport.

“It‘s important that we give every opportunity for Australia to bid. If they bid, we take it very seriously. It’s inevitable.”

Snowboard fields at the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Jack Rayner of Team Australia competes in the Men's Senior race during the 2023 World Cross Country Championships.

Athletics Australia (AA) has been holding ongoing talks with the sport’s global governing body about the possibility of hosting major championships in the lead-up to 2032.

The world cross-country championships took place in Bathurst last weekend but an AA spokesperson said nothing has been decided yet about a possible bid for the showcase track and field championships though there is still time if everyone gets on board.

“We don‘t want a world championships where you’ve only got a commercial interest driving it and you’ve got no support from your member federation,” Coe said.

“That just doesn‘t work. In fact, it’s dangerous to do it that way.”

If the world championships do take place in Australia in Winter, it could be a game changer for the Winter Olympics, which has struggled for suitable hosts, with Sochi (2014) and Beijing (2022) awarded hosting rights despite not having much natural snow.

There are more than a dozen year-round sports that are played indoors at the Summer Olympics – including basketball, boxing, weightlifting, gymnastics, fencing and table tennis – that could just as easily be played indoors at the Winter Olympics.

Coe believes it’s time some sports made the switch to generate more interest in the Winter Olympics, including cross country athletics, which isn’t even on the Summer program at present.

“I have an ambition to get cross country into the Olympic Games and a Winter Olympic Games. I‘m told by the IOC, you can’t put it into the Winter Games because it can only be an event that takes place on snow and ice.

“I haven‘t witnessed a great day of snow and ice evident in recent Winter Olympic Games and in fact I see most of it being shovelled in or being created synthetically.

“But I like the idea of cross-country going into a Winter Games because I think it actually genuinely gives Africa more of an interest in a Winter Games than they currently have for all sorts of historic and resource implications.”

Originally published as Brisbane Olympics 2032: Winter event could revolutionise Olympic sport forever