Brisbane confirmed as 2032 Olympics frontrunner
The 2032 Olympics and Paralympics are now Brisbane’s to lose after the IOC voted to elevate it to preferred candidate.
The International Olympic Committee today unanimously took Brisbane right to the brink of winning the 2032 Olympics and Paralympic Games but warned that it is not “a done deal”.
The IOC executive board has named the south-east Queensland bid as its preferred candidate and will enter into “targeted discussions” with it in the coming months on a range of legal and organisational issues. Brisbane can still fail to satisfy the IOC with its answers, at which point it might drop back into the pack of rival contenders, but for the moment it has every reason to be extremely optimistic
“It’s not a done deal,’’ said the chair of the Future Host Commission, Norway’s Kristin Kloster Aasen. “But it is a very advanced proposal. There are a number of proposals (in the Brisbane bid) that work well for us.”
It is a devastating blow to other rivals, including Doha, Budapest, a Rhine-Ruhr German bid and the Chinese cities of Chengdu and Chongqing. They are now out of the running for the 2032 Games, with their only chance of a reprieve to come if Brisbane inexplicably falls over at the final hurdle.
Speaking in Brisbane after the IOC confirmed the news, Annastacia Palaszczuk said an Olympic Games hosted by Brisbane could be delivered without needing to build significant new sporting infrastructure and could help lead Queensland’s economic recovery following the coronavirus pandemic.
The Queensland premier said all levels of government had worked to make it happen.
“I’m very pleased that we’ll be working with the mayors and the Federal Government to ensure that we get the funding to make this a reality,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“We already have 85 per cent of the venues at the moment.
“It’s a new norm, which means it’s a game changer.
“We don’t have to build huge stadiums that are not going to be used in the future. And this gives us hope and opportunity as we go through our economic recovery and plan for the future.”
Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates said he was confident he could “get the numbers” in a vote of the IOC required to see the bid become reality.
“You have to get 50 per cent plus one,” Mr Coates said.
“So I’m hoping, I’m planning, that we will conclude the requirements that we have to fulfil, the state, city, Paralympic committee and the Olympic Committee.
“That will all be done by the end of April, early May and on that basis, we could go to a vote in Tokyo.”
Mr Coates said the aim was for Brisbane’s bid to “break even”, with funding to come from the IOC and sponsorship.
Earlier, IOC president Thomas Bach refused to give his personal opinion of the Brisbane bid but seemingly only because he did not want to comment on a decision in which he had not been personally involved. “I would have liked to listen in a bit,” he joked.
Nonetheless, he mounted a robust defence of his close friend and executive board colleague, John Coates of Australia, who has been supposedly tainted by his close association with the Brisbane bid while also serving on the IOC executive committee.
“All of this has happened in compliance with rules that were voted on unanimously by the IOC session in 2019,” he said.
Coates, himself, also has defended his impartiality. Speaking in Brisbane on Wednesday, Coates pointed out that he took no part in the decision to elevate Brisbane to the IOC’s preferred candidate.
“We have got a (Future Host) Commission that doesn’t include any IOC executive board members,” said Coates, addressing the criticism. “So it is a totally independent Commission. It investigates, it interviews, it receives presentations and then, at the appropriate tie, it makes a recommendation to the IOC executive board.
“In terms of me being criticised, I’m neither on the Future Host Commission nor on the executive board. I’m recused…..whenever this is discussed, I’m out of the room.”
There was an immediate reaction from a German journalist at the IOC press conference about whether Greenpeace had been consulted. The journalist Marcus Klepper also asked whether Australia’s climate change credentials will be considered, especially as the Queensland state was the site of ‘’huge mining, and coal interests’’.
IOC executive director Christophe Dubi said Queensland will now have to respond to a questionnaire, including providing various guarantees requested. Various non-government organisations would be consulted, as in the past.
The IOC will now start more detailed discussions with the Brisbane 2032 Committee and the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC).
— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) February 24, 2021
The Future Host Commission will maintain continuous dialogue with the other interested parties to further develop their projects. https://t.co/5Wiqc5UEMe
Back in Queensland, muted celebrations were underway as Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Shrinner described the IOC decision as “a vote of confidence” in the south-east Queensland bid.
“After many years of hard work from the SEQ Mayors, it’s amazing to hear the International Olympic Committee acknowledges south east Queensland has what it takes to host an Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Shrinner said.
“When we started this journey almost six years ago to the day, many people were sceptical. Now we’re one step away from being named as the host of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
“Today is not the time however to get overexcited, there is still plenty of work to be done.
“We started this journey to accelerate investment in critical transport infrastructure for our region’s future, and we look forward to working with the Commonwealth and State to ensure this happens,” said Lord Mayor Schrinner.
Still, the region is home to one Australian in seven and the IOC decision means it should not miss out on infrastructure projects in the 11 years before the Games. As for the Games themselves, the Council of Mayors believes they can be delivered on a cost-neutral basis – with IOC television rights and ticket sales factored into the equation – while the expectation is that there will be billions of dollars injected into the local, state and national economy.
As well, the estimate from the Queensland Government is that the Games will deliver 130,000 direct jobs.
The IOC now is likely to ask for detailed submissions regarding the Brisbane Games budget, while the Federal Government will need to guarantee such things as security, cybersecurity, customs and tax. These were all provided for the 2000 Sydney Olympics but a slip-up in this process could see Brisbane thrown back into the pack.
Even if Australia clears all requirements and meets its legal demands, the IOC Session will still be required to ratify its only candidate for the Games,
At a press conference in Lausanne earlier this morning (Australian time), Mr Bach said no decision had been taken on when the IOC would vote on the 2032 host city.
Arguable, it could have been taken in Japan at the IOC Session in July, just a few days before the Tokyo Olympics. Coates believes that answering all the IOC’s questions by May at the latest was “do-able” but given the internal politics of the IOC and the fact it is still working through its new process for determining a winner, this may be a time for caution.
Because of the need to issue papers for the meeting a month in advance, it would have meant Australia would have had to fast-track all the legal documentation to have it done by the end of April or early May.
It is understood that Brisbane demonstrated in a virtual presentation with the Commission on February 8 that it was vastly better prepared than any of its rivals.
A bidding team comprising Australian Olympic president John Coates, Federal Sports Minister Richard Colbeck, Queensland Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk, state sports minister Stirling Hinchliffe, Schrinner, Paralympics boss Jock O’Callaghan, five-time Olympian Natalie Cook and Paralympian Bridie Kean all played vital roles in the virtual presentation. But seemingly the star of the show – as she was for the entire 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney – was Cathy Freeman.
The woman who literally lit the flame at those Games did the same thing, metaphorically-speaking for Brisbane as she outlined her story to the Future Host commissioners headed by Aasen. She traced her life, from being born in Mackay into the Kuku Yalanji people of her mother and grandmother, with her Dad a Burri Gubba man.
“It was at the age of five that I first fell in love with running,” Freeman told the commissioners. “I was a shy child with a raw running talent. However, I had a wild streak and so the sense of calm I found in my running was a godsend.”
But it was when Freeman explained that when she moved to Hughenden as a 10-year-old child and she was forced to do all her running in the desert that she truly captured the spirit of the bid.
No city is thought to have ever successfully got through an IOC bidding process so cheaply. If Brisbane does triumph at the end of the day, the whole bidding campaign will have cost under the $10 million Prime Minister Scott Morrison pledged for that purpose. Even when he proposed that figure, it is understood Bach told him “Save your money…it won’t cost that much!”
By contrast the failed bid for the 1996 Olympics by Melbourne and the ultimately successful Sydney bid for the 2000 Games each cost at least $30 million. Brisbane’s original Olympic bid, for the 1992 Games, cost $5 million, though that began seriously 36 years ago when Coates moved to Brisbane to take strategic charge of the campaign headed by then Lord Mayor Sallyanne Atkinson.
With the IOC adopting the “New Norm” proposal to allow cities not only to use existing or temporary facilities to stage the Games but also to bind with other cities to hold the Olympics, suddenly Brisbane was in a position to potentially follow in the footsteps of Melbourne (1956) and Sydney (2000) to stage the two-week sporting extravaganza.
Still, it seems extraordinary that a campaign that began in February 2015 with a column by The Australian’s Wayne Smith recommending it chase the 2032 Games could almost certainly culminate in success just six years later.
Less than a week after The Australian’s column, the Council of Mayors – the loose organisation of the 10 south-east Queensland councils – had voted picked up on the idea and voted to conduct a pre-feasibility study.
A visit to Brisbane by IOC president Thomas Bach in April-May 2015 was all the encouragement the Council of Mayors and ultimately the State Government needed.
Momentum began building behind the bid, with AOC president John Coates estimating the Games could be run on a cost-neutral operational budget because of the “New Norms” imperatives, with such things as IOC television rights and ticketing offsetting the costs of the Games organising committee. As polling conducted by The Courier-Mail began to show Queenslanders were overwhelmingly in favour of going ahead with the bid, even Olympic insiders began recognising Brisbane as the Olympic front-runner.
That in turn led to the full COMSEQ (Council of Mayors south east Queensland) feasibility study conducted by the Council, in 2018, followed by the Value Proposition Assessment by the Queensland Government which led to Cabinet endorsement of the bid.
Brisbane moved to the stage of lodging a formal bid through the Australian Olympic Committee on January 2, 2000 followed seven days later by the formal recognition by the IOC.
The full vision of a Brisbane Games has not been unveiled yet but indications are that Suncorp Stadium could become the first rectangular stadium to host an Olympic opening and closing ceremony, while it is understood the IOC would have no objections if the main stadium at Carrara used for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games was used as the track and field venue.
Two Athletes Villages are planned, one most likely on the Hamilton Reach of the Brisbane River, the other, considerably smaller, on the Gold Coast, while the Victoria Park golf course could become home to that sport and the equestrian events. The redeveloped Ballymore looks set to become a hockey venue during the Games, while it is believed organisers are looking closely at staging the marathon on the Sunshine Coast. Cairns and Townsville are likely to be given preliminary matches in soccer, as are Toowoomba and Ipswich, which might also receive some of the modern pentathlon.
Olympic sources have told The Australian that Queensland, with its balmy climate loved by international athletes, and stable governance, has helped its cause. But the tripartite government support from local, state and Federal level has elevated Queensland to this front runner stage.
Under the new Olympic format, potential games hosts work with the IOC to formulate a Games plan, rather than have expensive lobbying campaigns and a last gasp winner take all vote.
While today’s announcement is nothing like the big stay up all night decision - remember Juan Antonio Samaranch’s stuttering of Syd-er-ney in 1993 from Monaco that gave Australia the 2000 games - it is a significant and crucial step forward.
If Queensland is successful in being awarded the Games, it will be Australia’s third hosting, after the Games held in Melbourne in 1956 and the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
When Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk formally announced the bid at the end of 2019 she said “generations to come” would benefit.
“Of course, an Olympics means a lot to this state,” she said,
“It’s pride in our state. It tells the rest of the world that we’re firmly on the map.”
At that time it was estimated 80 per cent of the required infrastructure already existed in Queensland, and that 120,000 jobs would be created.
“We can look at existing infrastructure. We don’t have to build huge venues that will not be used into the future,” she said.
It is proposed the 2032 Games would be held from July 23 to August 8.
More Coverage
Gabba for the Olympics? Crisafulli is open to it
Queensland election frontrunner David Crisafulli has left the door open to reviving plans to overhaul the Gabba as Brisbane’s marquee Olympic stadium.
‘Your time is now’: Lions urged to cash in with $3.4b power move
Premierships bring power and an Olympic champion has urged the Brisbane Lions to use theirs now - and turn their AFL title into something much bigger.