By Dan Nancarrow
In front of a home crowd of screaming fans, Kieran Perkins blitzes the field in the 1500-metre freestyle, picking up his first Olympic gold medal and shattering his own world record inside the Chandler Aquatic Centre.
Across the city, the US Dream Team make their Games debut, bringing NBA Showtime to Boondall while athletes from all over the world mill about in the neighbouring, freshly built Games Village. A freshly built village you won't find on a map – all you'll see is swampland.
Images featured in promotional material from Brisbane's bid for the 1992 Olympic Games. The main image is of a proposed yacht marina.Credit: Harrison Saragossi
Welcome to Brisbane 1992, the Olympic Games that never were.
It has been 30 years since then-lord mayor Roy Harvey, swept up by the euphoria of the city's Commonwealth Games success, announced plans to hold an Olympic Games in Brisbane.
An artist's impression of the Athletes' Village had Brisbane won its bid for the 1992 Olympic Games.Credit: Harrison Saragossi
In the lead up to the London Games, brisbanetimes.com.au has trawled through the bid documents to build a picture of the Games that could have been held here 20 years ago.
The bid team's plan was to accommodate all 26 sports (except the Lake Kurwongbah rowing venue) within a 20-kilometre radius of the Boondall Olympic Village.
The city would have been divided up into four zones - Central, Chandler, Boondall and QEII - with 22 of the 27 sporting venues already built or under construction at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre precinct.
The capacity of the Sleeman Sports Centre, built for the 1982 Commonwealth Games, was to be doubled, with the addition of four indoor competition stadiums and four warm-up halls.
A collection of the imagery included in Brisbane's 1992 Olympic Games bid.
Archery, cycling, shooting, swimming, table tennis and weightlifting would be held in the Chandler precinct, with new venues built for equestrian sports, fencing and wrestling nearby.
In the central zone, the only venue deemed in need of an upgrade was Lang Park.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Sallyanne Atkinson and Sir Peter Abeles, the chairman of the Brisbane Organising Committee for the 1992 games, plead their cases. READ IT IN FULL
According to the bid documents, the iconic rugby league venue was set down to host the football tournament, with its 35,000 capacity to be "substantially increased", .
The facilities at Festival Hall (boxing), Milton Tennis Centre (tennis) and the Valley Pool (water polo) were all seen fit to host their respective sports without major improvements.
A proposed map of venues for the '92 Brisbane Olympics. VIEW IT IN FULL Credit: Photo: Harrison Saragossi
QEII stadium, the centrepiece of the Commonwealth Games, was to have its capacity boosted to 95,000 for athletics.
The main Press Centre, International Broadcast Centre, Communications Centre and Media Village were to built at South Bank, with venue coverage employing "all the latest techniques including stereo sound, super slow motion, isolated camera slow motion, divided control of multi action events with separate feeds sufficient to ensure that all sports action is covered".
But the biggest expansion was planned for the Boondall site, with the construction of the Games Village, along with venues to accommodate baseball, softball, diving, gymnastics, handball, hockey, volleyball and yachting.
With the support of the federal Hawke government and the state Coalition, Harvey's successor Sallyanne Atkinson became the driving force of Brisbane's bid after her election in 1985.
That year, she went to Berlin to lobby the International Olympic Committee before presenting the city's bid in Lausanne a year later. Her experience with the IOC was utilised in the successful Sydney 2000 bid, as well as Melbourne's failed attempt of 1996.
But Ms Atkinson remembers Brisbane's bid as strong and fiscally responsible. Much of the infrastructure needed was already in place thanks to the Commonwealth Games.
"Interestingly the bid itself cost less than $5 million," she said.
"I think our bid was fantastic and I think its one of the messages for the Commonwealth Games people that you don't have to splash out and spend enormous amounts of money.
"One doesn't like to say this, but we would have been much better prepared than Barcelona, a lot of their facilities weren't even finished.
"Australia, in many ways, is a boring country but we are very good at organising."
According to University of Queensland academic Ian Jobling, the Brisbane bid team were so confident of their progress that they offered to take over the 1988 Games following rumours the Seoul Olympics might falter.
The country's political stability was emphasised in the light of the boycotts of the preceding Moscow and Los Angeles games.
Melbourne 1956's reputation as the "Friendly Games" was routinely referenced, but most of the Brisbane team's efforts went to selling Brisbane as a world city.
The bid's opponents criticised the Queensland capital for being too small and unknown on the international stage.
The catch cry "Brisbane's ready", in retrospect, doesn't seem like the most confident deflection of those criticisms.
The bid books flaunted the council's fleet of "550 modern buses", trumpeting the success of rail and bus integration throughout the Commonwealth Games and the construction of a new international airport by 1987.
It was also forecast Brisbane would have 50,000 hotel rooms by 1992 including "many" five star international hotels in the city centre.
In the end it wasn't enough.
In the final round of voting, Brisbane attracted just 10 votes, coming in third behind Barcelona (47) and Paris (23), but ahead of the then-Yugoslav capital Belgrade (five).
Ms Atkinson said the decision to award the Games to Barcelona was purely political.
Not only was IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch Spanish, Ms Atkinson said she was told by one of the delegates from Mexico that the Spanish speaking countries voted as a bloc for Barcelona.
While Brisbane made a play for the '96 Games, the bid did not make it past the Australian Olympic Committee. Melbourne got the nod and was defeated by Atlanta.
After the disappointment of missing out on the 96 bid and Sydney's victory, Brisbane has never attempted grabbing the flame again.
But hope began to flicker four years ago when AOC chief John Coates told The Australian Brisbane was the most likely choice for the next Australian candidate city.
The idea of the bid was supported by then-Premier Anna Bligh and current Premier Campbell Newman, who was speaking as lord mayor of Brisbane.
And Coates reiterated his comments earlier this month, telling The Daily Telegraph that, under the present IOC criteria, Brisbane was the most likely Australian city to hold the games, possibly in 20 years' time.
But the momentum towards a possible 2024 bid hasn't progressed further than optimistic chatter.
The new LNP government is focused on reducing the state's debt, an issue Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said should take priority.
While Cr Quirk had no doubt Brisbane would be up to holding the games, he said it would be an issue of timing.
“While it's undoubtedly a wonderful event, the Olympics are expensive to run – that's why I'm encouraging more hotel and infrastructure development now, so in the future we can be considered for opportunities like this," he said.
“Given Australia only hosted an Olympic Games 12 years ago, it's unlikely we will be in the running for another Games any time soon, but we will be ready when our time comes.
“Brisbane is the next logical Australian choice for the Games and the G20 Summit will prove we can successfully accommodate large scale events.”
Expo '88 chairman and chief executive Sir Llew Edwards says Brisbane could have pulled off a successful games in 1992.
But he said the city was in a much better position to hold the Olympics now than it was 20 years ago.
"Nowadays I really feel like we are ready for another big event," Sir Llew said.
"I haven't the slightest doubt about that. And if it could be the Olympics it would be a wonderful opportunity for Brisbane to once again show that we really can do anything we want to if we put our heart to it.
"Our history of hosting major events should be an advantage and I would be right behind an attempt to get an Olympics to the city.
"I think the time is right."
If Brisbane became an Olympic city in the future, the '92 bid would deserve some of the credit.
In Ms Atkinson's eyes, Brisbane's attempt was not a failure and achieved its primary purpose, all the while leaving behind a legacy the next bid team can build on.
"I always thought, and I feel this very strongly, that the whole purpose of our bidding was really to market Brisbane," she said.
"I always knew we were a long shot and I used to say to IOC members when I was lobbying them 'in Australia we have a horse race called the Melbourne Cup and the favourite never wins, so we're here to have a go'.
"I was a disappointed obviously when I lost but it really did do a lot for marketing Brisbane."