IOC vice-president John Coates wants athlete numbers reduced for 2032 Brisbane Games

SYDNEY – International Olympic Committee vice-president John Coates has said athlete numbers at the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane must be reduced to help ensure the Games are as cost-effective as possible.

The addition of cricket, flag football, squash, baseball and softball in Los Angeles in 2028 will see participation numbers climb beyond 11,000, but Coates wants that figure to be lowered when the Australians host the event four years later.

“We’ve now got a situation that we’re going from 10,500 athletes in Paris (in 2024) to 11,242 in Los Angeles,” the former Australian Olympic Committee president and member of Brisbane’s Olympic organising committee told The Australian newspaper.

“That’s the problem for the future of the Olympic Games because we have to continue to look at cost minimisation and efficiencies in running the Games.

“But it’s pretty clear to me with Brisbane, it’s clear to our organising committee and certainly me that we need to reduce the numbers and get back to a manageable number of 10,500.”

Los Angeles is set to be the second-largest Olympics in terms of athlete participation, falling just short of the 11,319 involved in Tokyo in 2021.

Coates’ desire to reduce numbers would mean removing events from the programme, although he is enthusiastic about the return of cricket to the Games in Los Angeles for the first time since 1900.

The sport, which will draw significant attention from the Indian subcontinent in particular, has yet to be confirmed for Brisbane.

“To get cricket on means another one billion people watching on top of the 4.5 billion that we attract already,” said Coates.

While speculation continues about which other sports may be added or removed from the 2032 programme, Coates dismissed suggestions that horse racing could be part of any future Games.

“It ain’t going to happen,” he said.

Surfing is one of the newer Olympic sports and will feature at Paris 2024.

A barge

planned for the use of building a controversial judging tower

for the Paris 2024 surfing competition in Tahiti snagged on a reef and damaged coral near the contest site on Dec 1, local opponents said.

Residents of Teahupo’o in October protested plans by Games organisers to build the 14-metre aluminium tower to enable up to 40 people to watch, film and judge the surfing at a famed break in front of the village.

Organisers, including Paris 2024 and the French Polynesia government, said in November they had decided building a smaller, lighter tower on the site was the best option, allowing for smaller equipment to install it – but still requiring new foundations in the reef.

A video posted on Instagram by Save Teahupo’o Reef, a coalition of locals, surfers and environmental NGOs, showed the barge apparently stuck on the reef, along with broken coral and the barge’s damaged propeller. REUTERS