Sports call for international sport event strategy ahead of Brisbane Games
Sports presenting to the Queensland Government’s infrastructure review are calling for a formal body to bid for major events that can provide sustainable revenue generation for 2032 venues.
National sports bodies have called on the Queensland Government to fully leverage the opportunities on offer ahead of the 2032 Olympics by developing an international sport event strategy to secure major competitions in the lead-up to the Games.
Several sports presenting to the government’s 100-day infrastructure review have suggested the government, through Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ), develop a body to bid for international sporting events ahead of the Games in a move that would be a major revenue generator.
Bid deadlines for major events being held in the seven years leading up to the Brisbane Olympics and Paralympics are looming and after being slow to lock in venues, the state cannot wait for final builds to be complete before thinking about attracting test events and other major international championships either before of after 2032.
Paddle Australia, whose submission to the 100-day review has asked for a thorough feasibility study of Hinze Dam, believing it could be a superior site for sprint canoe events at the Games, is keen not only for the Gold Coast Hinterland site to become a legacy piece of infrastructure for the sport in Queensland but an economic driver for the region.
A greenlit Olympic flatwater course at Hinze Dam would create an Olympic venue close to metropolitan areas but also allow a bid for the World Paddle Games, an event that would attract thousands of competitors and showcase southeast Queensland’s spectacular waterways to an international audience.
Paddle Australia chief executive Kim Crane said the Hinze Dam site could be the key to unlocking a massive events, economic, and tourism driver for southeast Queensland.
“If we have the Redlands white water course and an international standard sprint course on the Gold Coast, considering oceans and waterways in southeast Queensland, we’re talking about now the ability to attract an international event at the scale of a World Paddle Games with all disciplines, which is incredibly exciting,” Crane said.
“So that’s a legacy that has economic benefit for Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast.”
It’s not just paddle that has this opportunity, with several sports calling in the state government to leverage the competition and training opportunities available to it to help fund the infrastructure spend around the Games.
“We’re actually also calling out now for the Queensland Government to have an international sport event strategy,” Crane said.
“Paddle (Australia) recommends that Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ) develop a comprehensive international sports event strategy to secure international sporting events because these sporting events are revenue generators for Queensland ahead of the Games.”
Rowing Australia (RA) has also given a thumbs up to plans for an “uplift” of sporting facilities across the state.
RA has also asked for a feasibility study to be completed at Hinze Dam and while it hasn’t backed Rockhampton’s push to host Olympic competition in the Fitzroy River, that region too remains a key part of its plans for preparation for both the Los Angeles and Brisbane Games.
“What we’d like to push for is that as a part of this uplift of sporting facilities and infrastructure across the state, those sporting strongholds and community sporting facilities, whether it’s for teams that are coming to prepare - and there will be many teams across many sports looking for places to base themselves - that we can really see an uplift across the state of what is really some crumbling infrastructure and community infrastructure,” RA chief executive Sarah Cook said.
“We’d love to see the new course at Rockhampton, and also probably an ablutions facility and just some public facilities so that we can bring national events there. It will be a really important place for us to stage our team ahead of both of the next Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Crane though said it could be just a “build it and they will come” philosophy.
“We’re in a competitive market across the globe,” she said.
“And our slow start in this space means we already have probably missed some of those opportunities.
“But an international sport event strategy, would really position Queensland as a global hub for sport tourism.
“If TEQ could develop that international sport event strategy, then we have an opportunity for sustainable revenue generation, not just for sport, but for venues, for tourism, for hotel stocks and local business.
“And for us at paddle, because our playground is oceans and waterways, we become such a great catalyst to be able to showcase iconic Australian landscapes.”
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