Stay in race for 2032, says Kevan Gosper

The former vice-president of the IOC, Kevan Gosper, is adamant that Brisbane should stay on course for a 2032 Olympic bid.

Australia’s former IOC vice-president Kevan Gosper.

The former vice-president of the International Olympic Committee, Kevan Gosper, is adamant that Brisbane should stay on course for a 2032 Olympic bid, particularly since all the signs are that future Games will be far more cost-effective than the ­extravaganzas of the past.

Gosper said he was heartened by the fact that the bids of both Los Angeles and Paris, which had been earmarked by the IOC for sequential Games, one in 2024, the other in 2028, both fall within the $US4-5 billion mark ($5.2bn-$6.5bn).

Compared with the $66bn Russia spent on the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics or the $56bn outlaid by China for the 2008 Summer Games, future Games look like being cut-price operations. Even the bidding process is being scaled down.

“What is developing is that the IOC is doing everything possible to avoid cities feeling that they have to bid a number of times, which is very costly,” said Gosper.

Certainly that was Australia’s experience, with Brisbane making the running for the 1992 Games before Melbourne unsuccessfully attempted to win the 1996 Games and ultimately Sydney was successful at the third attempt, beating Beijing by a vote for the 2000 Olympics.

It was usually at that point, when the Games had been allocated, that the IOC took a hand in the planning. But now, as part of its 2020 program, it is looking to send teams of technical ­experts into each city that ­expresses an interest in bidding to evaluate what it is planning before the city can even progress to the candidate stage.

The IOC teams will reside in each city for a year, helping with advice and planning. At the end of the year an assessment will be made to determine whether the city should progress to the candidate stage or drop out of the race.

“They (the IOC) are working much earlier with the cities to give them guidance, so that ­together the two parties can recognise whether there’s room for a city to be appointed or whether it goes beyond what they are ­prepared to budget or what they can scope,” Gosper said.

“I think the other main thing is that there has been a tremendous focus on lowering costs by using existing facilities, by using temporary stands and stadiums.”

The Los Angeles and Paris bids are low, at least in relative terms, because of their plans to use existing stadiums, although Brisbane would need to spend a substantial sum on a stadium to hold track and field.

It has never been done before, but there is no reason the opening and closing ceremonies could not be held in a rectangular stadium such as a refurbished Suncorp Stadium. And any stadium built around an oval for athletics — say, over the top of the Roma Street railway yards — could be used in future for AFL.

The trick is for Brisbane and its surrounding cities to consider how its infrastructure planning — which has to be done whether a bid goes ahead or not — can be married in with infrastructure that would support an Olympic Games.

By 2032, the expectation is that Brisbane would be serviced by a high-speed rail link from the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast and these two centres could accommodate international and interstate visitors for the Games.

Gosper believed that regional planning in southeast Queensland was progressing of its own accord in a way that could ­accommodate the Games.

“I would think by 2032, it would be well able to cope with an Olympic Games,” he said.