Brisbane2024

It's looking rather un-nerving.

I think far too much is being made of the Gold Coast / Brisbane, 'co-host' issue. Putting aside the notion of holding some team sports events in other parts of the state (which personally I think is a fine idea? And comparable, as Puppy said, to soccer in the Olympic Games), this is no more a co-host scenario than any other in the history of the Commonwealth Games. The Gold Coast and Brisbane are regions within the single greater metropolitan area known statistically as '(Greater) Brisbane', and they are sufficiently close that both will be utilised in what is still a perfectly palatable plan… The majority of the venues are within 20-30 minutes of the village with three or four outliers within an hour. Calling this a co-host scenario is like calling Melbourne a co-host scenario because it actually utilised the Local Councils of Moonee Valley, Port Phillip, Maribyrnong etc. Or every games in the history of the thing co-host scenarios for the same reason. (And in reality, local council jurisdictions in Queensland are as big as you will find, and if there is a single Local Government Area anywhere capable of holding a Commonwealth Games entirely within the confines of its own perimeter then it would surely be Brisbane. Failing that… the Gold Coast.)

Indeed it does. Doubly so when you take into account that Bob Gordon, as far as I can see, is basically chairman of the pie-in-the-sky cheer squad committee which has sweet FA to do with the feasibility study being run by the State Government.

Well this is interesting, and whoever concocted this Gold Coast stepping aside nonsense sure caught the NZ media with their pants down. (Not least of all because Auckland is actually Brisbane's sister city, not GC's. Two COMPLETELY separate cities, but anyway…). Cr Clarke says GC has a better climate than Brisbane? It certainly is a markedly different climate, being that much closer to the ocean, but I'm not sure gail force winds and flash floods are much of a selling point. I would dearly love to see GC get the games in 2018. I probably won't still be hanging around in Brisbane by the time 2018 rolls around, but you never know!