Editor’s view: Paris Olympics taste of what’s to come for Qld 2032

Perhaps there is an Olympic-sized truth we’ve all been guilty of ignoring, but in just 37 days, we won’t be able to, writes The Editor.

There are now just 37 days to go until the curtain goes up again on the world’s greatest spectacle – the Olympic Games.

And it is about now in every four-year Games cycle that armchair critics start to roll out their predictions for how nations and athletes will perform in terms of medal tallies.

They are hardly ever proven correct, with the surprise results a big part of the magic of any Olympics and Paralympics.

Our prediction for Paris is a far safer bet. And it is simply this: that there will be a resurgence of interest in – and support for – the Brisbane 2032 Games among Queenslanders after we watch the world’s best athletes put on their show in Paris.

For all the controversy and talk about venues and stadiums and politicians and legacy since we won our bid for the 2032 event three years ago, the heart of every single Games is of course the athletes.

Melissa Wu will take part in her 5th Olympics and Ellie Cole will take part in her first. Pics Adam Head

Perhaps that is a truth we have all been guilty of ignoring as we have engaged in the debates that have swirled around our soon-to-be Olympic city over the past few years.

What Paris will gift us will be two weeks of incredible storylines that will bring us to tears as our hearts swell with the sort of pride that only the Olympic Games delivers.

But keep the tissues out after that, because just a fortnight later we will watch in awe as our inspirational Paralympians do their thing, with their astonishing tales of endurance melting even the toughest of us.

Athletes like the Gold Coast’s Holly Warn, a swimming superstar already at age 15 – a kid who at four months old was diagnosed with cerebral palsy; with her parents told she might never walk or talk. No way! Holly will be there in Paris.

Or how about the astonishing Alexa Leary from the Sunshine Coast. Her parents were told by doctors they might need to say goodbye to her forever, after she landed on her head after a bicycle training accident in 2021. At the time she was the world’s second-best under-19 triathlete. Goodbye? Hardly! In 2024, the entire world is about to say hello to Alexa as she heads to Paris as the favourite in the S9 100m freestyle event.

Remember Hayley Lewis? The nation’s darling of the pool when she won five gold medals at the 1990 Commonwealth Games as a15 year-old. She could not even speak last week, she was so overcome with emotion when her boy Kai Taylor qualified for the Aussie Olympic team in the 200m freestyle. Keep an eye on the stands in Paris for the next chapter in that amazing Queensland swimming story.

Alexa Leary of Queensland reacts after winning the 100m Freestyle. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Then there’s Arnie, Kaylee, Emma, Bronte and Mollie – the headliners of Australia’s world-beating women’s swim team so well-known to us they don’t need their surnames. And don’t forget Cam McEvoy, ranked number one in the world in the 50m freestyle – and our other big men’s medal hopes like Zac Stubblety-Cook, Sam Short and Elijah Winnington (what a name!)

And then there’s Shayna Jack. Surely she is THE redemption story of these Games. Banned from swimming for four years after a positive drug test, there were days she could not even get out of bed such was the mental anguish. In 2021, the Court of Arbitration for Sport halved that suspension after concluding she did not intentionally ingest the “pharmacologically irrelevant” amount of Ligandrol found in her system in 2019.

Shayna credits her rebound to the man who told her repeatedly to “get your arse off the couch and get the pool – remember why you swim, remember why you love it”.

That man was her coach, Dean Boxall – the icon of Indooroopilly’s St Peters Western swim team who alone has trained a full one-quarter of Australia’s 40-strong swim team.

While best known today for his wild celebrations after Ariarne Titmus won gold in the 400m at Tokyo in 2021, Boxall represents all of those whose hard work, care and dedication is as much a part of every single Olympic and Paralympic story as the athletes themselves – the parents, siblings, coaches, teachers, club volunteers and friends whose years of support help deliver those magical moments that we share in every four years as a nation from our loungerooms.

So go well, you good things. And let’s just see at the end of this grand event how many Queenslanders are not pumped to see the greatest show on earth right here, in 2032.

Originally published as Editor’s view: Paris Olympics taste of what’s to come for Qld 2032