Australia rewrites plan to host 2032 Brisbane Games
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Organising Committee CEO Cindy Hook speaks at Costa Navarino, Greece on March 20.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
SYDNEY – Australia said on March 24 it is overhauling its multi-billion-dollar plans for hosting the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane after years of “chaos and crisis”.
The new plan, reportedly including a new 60,000-seat stadium, rewrites much of a A$7 billion (S$5.9 billion) infrastructure scheme announced in 2023.
“I do believe we’ve got a plan that can get the show back on the road,” Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said on the eve of the official unveiling of the new scheme.
“It’s a plan to make sure that we do deliver generational infrastructure, and it’s a plan to make sure that we do host a great Games when the eyes of the world are on us. Even the most partisan person, looking at where we are at the moment, would acknowledge that it’s been three years of chaos and crisis since we were awarded the Games.”
The Queensland capital was awarded the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics in July 2021, returning the Games to Australia for a third time after Melbourne 1956 and then Sydney 2000.
In 2023, the state’s then centre-left Labour government had announced plans to expand the famous Gabba cricket ground and create a new 17,000-seat indoor stadium for the Games.
However, Australian media, including Brisbane’s Courier Mail, said plans for the revamped Gabba and new stadium were now expected to be scrapped.
In all, six of the previously planned 14 Brisbane Games venues were set to be changed or axed, the Courier Mail said.
The new plan would likely feature a new 60,000-seat stadium to be built in the city’s Victoria Park, the newspaper said.
Conservative state leader Crisafulli said he had discussed the revamped plan with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, whose Labour government faces general elections in May. The federal government had committed to paying for much of the Brisbane Games infrastructure in the previous scheme.
“Of course, that there’s been some strong negotiations,” Crisafulli said in a joint news conference with the Australian Prime Minister.
“Two people of Italian descent, you’d expect that. But there’s nothing that can’t be solved over a bit of common sense and a cannoli,” he said.
Meanwhile, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe insisted on March 23 that his unsuccessful challenge for the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was water under the bridge.
Coe had to be content with third place in the vote for the new IOC president in Greece last week.
Zimbabwean Kirsty Coventry, a former Olympic swimming champion, won in the first round of election with 49 of the 97 votes.
IOC veteran Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr received 28 votes, while Coe, twice Olympic 1,500m gold medallist, received just eight.
Asked whether he categorised his defeat as humiliating, the Briton was adamant that that was not the case and that he was very much back to the day job.
“No, I mean, I don’t think like that,” he said on the sidelines of the world indoor championships in Nanjing, China.
“I’m here. This is the centrepiece of Olympic sport and I’ve got a job to do.
“The world goes on. I offered a vision, which I stand by. I thought I could make a contribution, but that’s not going to be the way.” AFP
