Australian Games bid on hold as IOC sends experts in

The IOC will send its own experts into a city for a year to evaluate whether a Games bid is viable.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk. Picture: Annette Dew

Brisbane and the surrounding cities­ of southeast Queensland could be the first region to benefit from an International Olympic Committee plan to send its own experts into a city for a year to evaluate whether an Olympic Games bid is viable.

The IOC’s decision yesterday to award the 2024 and 2028 Games at the same summit later this year — almost certainly with one going to Los Angeles, the other to Paris — is likely to force Brisbane to defer its potential 2028 bid by another four years.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said the IOC’s announcement would be discussed at the next Council of Mayors meeting this month, when a decision would be made on whether to proceed with the bid.

But in an exclusive interview with The Australian from Lausanne­, IOC vice-president John Coates said the delay would save the city millions in the bidding process, and not just because it would be spared the expense of running a 2028 campaign to effectivel­y position itself for its real attempt, in 2032.

“I have spoken in recent time with the Lord Mayor and he’s very happy and relaxed about 2032 being more appropriate, particularly in regard to the infrastructure of Brisbane and the other six cities,” Mr Coates said.

He said among the cost-saving benefits the IOC ­intends introducing before the 2032 Games are allocated in 2025 is a scheme to do away with “reinventing the wheel” at the bidding stage.

“Under this new procedure, when we get an expressi­on of intere­st from a city, the IOC sends its technical experts­ in, with the (international sports) federations, and helps form­ulate a bid using what you’ve got in the best possible way rather than spending a whole lot of money to hire these experts yourself.

“We then help a city over a period­ of a year and then we look at the cities and then we think these one, two or three cities can do this. We would nominate them as candidates and then we would vote one year later. (That would) totally discourage these inter­national advertising campaigns and everything else.

‘We’d be involved in an ongoing dialogue with these cities to help them formulate their master planning of their project. It would take a lot of costs out of it.”

Mr Coates said if it became apparent after that phase that Brisbane, for example, lagged behind other contending cities, the IOC would tell it that it was not its time. “We don’t want cities going to the final stage … if it’s a folly.”

He said the Brisbane bid was “heading in the right direction”.

In May, Mr Coates fought to hold on to his presidency of the Australian Olympic Committee and strongly backed the Brisbane bid. However, he warned of the impending double vote plans. By June, he had more firmly supported the IOC plans when possible legal impediments were cleared.

Additional reporting: Jacquelin Magnay