IOC backs in Victoria Park, as Brisbane 2032 organisers remain hopeful for arena

The Brisbane Olympics could go ahead without a new arena, but Games organisers remain hopeful the planned Woolloongabba venue will be ready in time to be in the mix for 2032.

A high-level International Olympic Committee delegation completed its three-day visit to south-east Queensland on Thursday, and gave its tick of approval to the planned Victoria Park stadium and aquatic centre after a site visit on Wednesday.

“It reminded me of going to the Royal Easter Show in Sydney [before 2000] and having to envisage there the swimming pool and the stadium, except that here you are in this park,” Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi said.

Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi, co-ordination committee chair Mikee Cojuangco-Jaworski, with Brisbane 2032 president Andrew Liveris and chief executive Cindy Hook addressing media at Suncorp Stadium on Thursday,Credit: Lyndon Mechielsen

“What we saw yesterday was an incredible location … you have also this opportunity to have this venue and this number of spectators and creating that precinct atmosphere downtown.

“That will be something incredibly special.”

The Games Independent Infrastructure and Co-ordination Committee’s 100-day review did not recommend the aquatic centre be built, choosing instead to push for a new arena at the former Go Print site, opposite the Gabba stadium, rather than Roma Street as previously planned.

This masthead revealed last month that GIICA submitted the term “Gabba Arena” for trademark protection, along with “Brisbane Stadium” for Victoria Park and “Brisbane Sports Park” – the proposed new name of the Sleeman Sports Complex at Chandler.

The planned 19,000-capacity main pool at Victoria Park.Credit: Archipelago

While the government rejected that recommendation as part of the Olympic infrastructure funding envelope, it has sought expressions of interest for the private sector to build the arena.

Speaking at a Suncorp Stadium media conference to mark the end of the IOC visit, Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee president Andrew Liveris appeared confident the government’s approach of attracting private funding would work.

“Now, what better site, right? That’s a great precinct, and that’ll be part of the legislation,” he said.

Liveris said there was no doubt Brisbane needed a new inner-city arena, which would replace the ageing Entertainment Centre at Boondall.

“This is a city that’s definitely grown up quite a lot, if I could use that term, but the absence of an arena or an entertainment complex was clearly being discussed at great length,” he said.

Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee chief executive Cindy Hook also weighed in.

“I don’t think we need that venue desperately for the Games, but gosh, if we add it and we’ve got some more options, I would love to see that,” she said.

Plans for the Brisbane Arena to be built at Roma Street have been scrapped.Credit: Queensland government

Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie told parliament on Tuesday the private sector interest in building the arena had been “exciting”.

“That is why we are hitting the ground running, opening the process today to hear from the private sector about their vision and what they can do in that area,” he said.

Another deviation from GIICA’s recommendations was the Crisafulli government’s decision to hold Olympic rowing on the Fitzroy River.

Rowing’s governing bodies have expressed concerns the river’s currents would not meet technical specifications.

Dubi said the decision might ultimately be taken out of the government’s hands.

“No one else than the federation can say ‘field of play ready’, but the collaboration is essential,” he said.

“...We have full confidence about the onboarding of the international federation [World Rowing] and getting their views to make the plan great one.”

For the visiting IOC officials, including president Thomas Bach, president-elect Kirsty Coventry and newly minted Brisbane 2032 Co-ordination Commission chair Mikaela “Mikee” Cojuangco Jaworski, this week marked their first in-country meetings with the Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee.

Jaworski, who replaced the promoted Coventry in the role earlier this month, said it was a homecoming of sorts, having spent much of her life in Australia for equestrian events.

“I would regularly – once a year – be living on the Brisbane Showgrounds when I was competing there,” she said.

“Little did I imagine that I’d be sitting here now and, just seven years away, it’s going to be the heart of the Olympic and Paralympic Games as the Athletes’ Village.”

Of the existing venues, Jaworski said she was most impressed by the Gold Coast – and hoped some of the new minor venues across the state would learn from its example.

“We were at Carrara yesterday and I couldn’t help but marvel at how many people were using it, how many courts were available – it was so accessible, and the size of it was just something that I could imagine events being held there, the Games going on, there, people going through it,” she said.

“For me, the fact that it has local use and then will be used for the Olympic Games, allows me also to look forward into those that are being built, and seeing how they also have that same potential to be world-class and at the same time local.”