2032 Brisbane Olympic Games chaos will be forgotten when circus finally comes to town

The 2032 Olympics are a hot mess now. But most people hate the Olympics and consider it a gross waste of taxpayer’s money right up until the moment it starts.

Former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk celebrates Brisbane winning the bid for the 2032 Olympic Games.

You can already hear a 78-year-old yet ever-spritely Bruce McAvaney calling it, just as he did with Cathy Freeman.

Gout Gout sling-shots off the bend in the men’s 200 metres final at the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, exploding down the track, gold chain bouncing off his chest, arms raised in triumph as he wins gold in the city in which he was born and raised.

Just as Freeman’s famous victory at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 was a defining moment for this beautiful sport-obsessed land, so too will that of Gout Gout should he continue his current trajectory.

What a scene: the son of South Sudanese refugees who found a life in Brisbane bettering the silver medal Melbourne’s Peter Norman won in Mexico City in 1968 when he stood on the dais in support of US athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who raised fists in protest of how African-Americans were being treated at home.

The story writes itself. And if the story doesn’t, AI will.

By then, the absolute shitfight the Brisbane Olympics presently finds itself in will have been long forgotten.

The political point-scoring, the cranky action groups, and the endless news stories of artists impressions of what Brisbane’s stadia may or may not look like will have been consigned to history.

So will the chatter about the IOC stripping Brisbane of the hosting rights after three years of bitching and moaning and very angry social media posts between various stakeholders.

The IOC’s decision at the Tokyo Games in 2021 to name the host city gave Brisbane too much time to disappear up its tan-lined backside.

“There’s no project management that challenges a city like an Olympic and Paralympic Games does,” World Athletics president Sebastian Coe told McAvaney in an interview for the ABC last month. “You don’t want such a lengthy period of time where local communities are wondering what on Earth’s happening. We need to rethink that.”

Three changes of Queensland premier and an election within three years meant the afterglow of winning the bid was soon strangled by politics.

They chuckle in political circles about Labor spivs rounding down the value of a knockdown and rebuild of the Gabba to $1bn so Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s announcement at least sounded more agreeable to taxpayers. What’s $200m between friends and taxpayers?

“We don’t the support the Gabba!” barked one Greens campaigner who was doorknocking residents before last October’s state election that ultimately installed the LNP’s David Crisafulli as premier.

An artists’ impression of the Victoria Parks stadium for the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games.

What has the Gabba ever done to the Greens? All it’s ever done is frighten the bejesus out of Test batsmen from other countries.

Alas, the Gabbatoir is on borrowed time.

Crisafulli will put the good people of Queensland out of their miseries on Tuesday when he reveals the findings of the 100-day review into how Games infrastructure will look and how $7.5bn of state and federal funding will be spent.

From what I’m told, the $3.4bn Victoria Park stadium will be built where the golf range stands, although that’s hardly a surprise.

The athlete’s village will be moved from Hamilton North Shore to the RNA Showgrounds in the centre of town. The Gabba will eventually be levelled when AFL and cricket can be played at Victoria Park.

What a missed opportunity to drop a pool in the middle of Suncorp Stadium, which deserves a facelift including a roof. Imagine an Olympic swimming meet with a State of Origin atmosphere that only Queenslanders can bring every night?

It’s not too late to change your mind, Premier!

Either way, Brisbane needs to get moving in the next seven years if it wants the Olympics to turn it into the vibrant international metropolis it desperately wants to be.

Cities like London, Tokyo and Paris were never going to be defined by their Olympics — they’d held them before. Brisbane will. It needs to stop bickering about stadium legacy and focus on the legacy these Olympics can leave for the city and state.

Look at the vibrant international metropolis Sydney became after holding the Games in 2000: a ghost town after 9pm because of mind-numbing lockout laws, constantly losing major events to Melbourne, and an Olympic Stadium in the middle of nowhere that nobody wants to attend because the traffic is so bad.

You, too, can have this Brisbane.

The 2032 Olympics might be a hot mess now, but every five-ringed circus endures some sort of catastrophe.

Sydney’s reputation for horrific traffic prompted city chiefs to rig the traffic lights to flash green when IOC officials were driving through. By the end of the 16 days, president Juan Antonio Samaranch declared it “the best games ever”.

In Athens, the venues literally came together on the last day. Athletes were overcome with fumes from wet paint in the athletes’ village, but the home of the modern-day Olympics pulled it off.

Protesters hold a rally in February in opposition to a stadium at Victoria Park. Picture: Liam Kidston

The smog in Beijing was going to kill marathon runners, but they survived. It was an incredible Games, lit up by Usain Bolt who seemed to be breathing quite easily on the way to gold in the 100m and 200m.

Rio de Janeiro was dogged by street crime and budget venues that looked very much like budget venues, but the party and caipirinhas made up for it.

And all those locals who left Paris before last year’s Olympics scurried back within days. Every venue heaved with proud French fans, from Stade de France to Roland Garros to the Trocadero.

Most people hate the Olympics and consider it a gross waste of taxpayer’s money right up until the moment it starts.

After Wally Lewis or Susie O’Neill or Greg Norman or Bindi Irwin lights the Olympic flame at Victoria Park at the opening ceremony on July 23, 2032, the Brisbane Olympics will be an event none of us will forget.

Coe voted out as IOC boss

Coe’s interview with McAvaney was part of a global PR campaign in recent months to become IOC president. He was popping up everywhere.

In the end, it came to naught at Friday morning’s election in Greece where he attracted just eight votes, losing to former Zimbabwe swimmer Kirsty Coventry, who took 49 of the 97 available votes in the first round. Juan Antonio Samaranch jnr attracted 28.

Did Lord Coe lose because he’s a 68-year-old white man count against him? You’d like to think not, although the IOC is the most volatile political party on the planet. He was clearly the best credentialled.

Coventry, 41, eventually followed Coe’s lead of wanting transgender athletes banned from competing in women’s events.

Perhaps his unyielding stance of banning Russian athletes competing at the Olympics because of the invasion of Ukraine, the notion of moving events from the summer Olympics to the winter Olympics because of climate change, as well as shaking up the structure of the IOC was clearly too much for some members to bear.

As the IOC’s co-ordination commission chair of the 2032 Olympic Games, Coventry’s victory was also one for Brisbane.

The rollercoaster ride of being a footy fan

Carlton fans have been rabid about their side’s unimpressive start to the season, with back to back losses to Richmond and Hawthorn sending them to the bottom of the ladder.

What funny, fickle footy fans we are, burning jerseys and scarves one week, declaring our team grand final certainties the next.

This season, though, open season on coaches has started very, very early.

In the AFL, Carlton supporters are kicking sizeable stones following the 13-point loss to Richmond with coach Michael Voss already in the gun … after one match.

Their 20-point loss to Hawthorn on Thursday night won’t silence the critics, but he felt similar heat in June 2023 after six straight losses before reaching the preliminary final — the club’s best result since 2000.

Meanwhile, the succession plan at Port Adelaide is allegedly in disarray with coach Ken Hinkley pencilled in as the first coach sacked following to 91-point loss to Collingwood.

In the NRL, North Queensland coach Todd Payten is apparently on the verge of being sacked after his side lost the first two matches of the season. (The Cowboys played the Brisbane Broncos on Friday night).

Familiar speculation about him “losing the dressing-room” was getting around Brisbane during Magic Round last year. Payten presumably relocated the dressing-room because the Cowboys went as far as the second week of the finals.

Meanwhile, new Parramatta coach Jason Ryles is under pressure after his side also lost its first two matches. The decision to let fullback Clint Gutherson sign with the Dragons has people in a lather.

Ryles is two matches into a four-year deal with his best player and halfback, Mitchell Moses, sidelined with injury.

It’s hard to keep up. Can we wait until at least April before we start sacking coaches?