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Australia Considers A Summer Olympic Bid


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Australia is considering another bid for the Summer Olympics, possibly in 2028.  Melbourne and Sydney have already hosted the 1956 and 2000 Olympics, but now the country is throwing its support behind a possible bid from Brisbane and the surrounding areas in southeast Queensland. Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates said a group of seven […]

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Interesting how this seems to have progressed simply by Coates own opinion. Unlike the domestic voting system in the 80s to select Aust candidates, the AOC seems extremely non-transparent.

I don't think any Aust city would nab 2028 - but if we're thinking into the 2040s it would be foolish to exclude Sydney and Melbourne on the basis of them already hosting.

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It would be great to see the Aussies throw their hats into the (5) rings again!

But is Brisbane the right candidate? Is it big and well-known enough on a world scale? Remember, the recent trend is for big, world-famous, iconic cities. Sydney and Melbourne certainly fit this bill, but does Brisbane?

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It would be great to see the Aussies throw their hats into the (5) rings again!

But is Brisbane the right candidate? Is it big and well-known enough on a world scale? Remember, the recent trend is for big, world-famous, iconic cities. Sydney and Melbourne certainly fit this bill, but does Brisbane?

I think the IOC wants smaller cities, maybe to demonstrate that they can host the games without spending a lot. Since Coates is on the EB, I think he endorsed Brisbane to set an example for this.

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Good on Australia at looking to bid again. The 2000 Games were excellent and to see that they are wanting to host again is excellent. Although I am not sure about Brisbane. Melbourne or Sydney might be a better bet as they have existing intrastrature.

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Brisbane's biggest advantage is its location. Because it's located farther north than Australia's bigger cities Sydney and Melbourne, its weather is far more comfortable during the northern hemisphere summer months, so it doesn't have the obstacle of having to convince the IOC to hold the games in September or October. It can comfortably host the games in August. Still, it has to really impress the IOC as to why Brisbane and not Sydney, or even Melbourne.

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Considering they just picked Beijing over Almaty, I wouldn't bet on that.

The size of the cities obviously wasn't the main reason why Beijing was picked over Almaty, especially since FAR smaller cities have hosted the WOGs more recently than Almaty. Sochi for one, Torino, Salt Lake City, etc.

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I think the IOC wants smaller cities, maybe to demonstrate that they can host the games without spending a lot. Since Coates is on the EB, I think he endorsed Brisbane to set an example for this.

Coates has supported Brisbane long before any of these reforms. It has more to do with the Melbourne team calling him out on his bias and veering close to corruption during the Melbourne 1996 bid, where he was known to be working against it in favour of Sydney 2000.

The AOC will be better when he's gone.

Besides Melbourne is far more aligned with Agenda 2020, it has a huge capacity of existing venues all strategically placed. Brisbane has very few, that those that do exist are spread out over a large area (the distance this Brisbane bid is talking about is some 250km north to South- it's regional SEQ) . It's advantage is, however, the ability to host from August onwards- Melbourne would have to be a late Sept/ early Oct Games.

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Coates has supported Brisbane long before any of these reforms. It has more to do with the Melbourne team calling him out on his bias and veering close to corruption during the Melbourne 1996 bid, where he was known to be working against it in favour of Sydney 2000.

Fair enough if you don't like him, but I think you may be mixing him up. As far as I remembered, and which I just checked again before writing this, Coates - while certainly always being a public Sydney backer in the AOC bidding decisions of the late 80s-early 90s - never had allegations of bias veering close to corruption and working against Melbourne made against him. Phil Coles, on he other hand, was the one that had matters of corruption in the SLC scandal level against him, and who was number one on Ron Walker's sh!t list over allegations he worked against Melbourne's 96 bid in favour of Atlanta (Coles still tormented by bribe allegations).

As I said, fair enough if you dislike him for whatever other reason, but IMO Coates has actually been one of our better and most effective AOC presidents and IOC members. If you are going slur him, at least slur him on the right reasons or slur the right person.

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Fair enough if you don't like him, but I think you may be mixing him up. As far as I remembered, and which I just checked again before writing this, Coates - while certainly always being a public Sydney backer in the AOC bidding decisions of the late 80s-early 90s - never had allegations of bias veering close to corruption and working against Melbourne made against him. Phil Coles, on he other hand, was the one that had matters of corruption in the SLC scandal level against him, and who was number one on Ron Walker's sh!t list over allegations he worked against Melbourne's 96 bid in favour of Atlanta (Coles still tormented by bribe allegations).

As I said, fair enough if you dislike him for whatever other reason, but IMO Coates has actually been one of our better and most effective AOC presidents and IOC members. If you are going slur him, at least slur him on the right reasons or slur the right person.

Correct. Crikey Coles was a shitt.

Brisbane while warmer is still not excatly balmy in July/August. We do get temperatures below 15 celcius every once in a while. The main problem is going to be venues. Unless it a hugely spread out Games Brisbane just does not have Olympic calibre venues on hand. Furthermore the main Stadium for the 1992 bid (QE2/ANZ Stadium and now QSAC) is entirely surrounded by suburbia. a Uni campus and a cemetary. Furthermore there is horrible public transport links. The stadium is only used these days for the occasional school sports carnival and a few concerts once Suncorp Stadium's annual limit is reached. Finally the upper uncovered stands are rarely used and there was talk of them being condemned a few years back.

Suncorp Stadium - while in a great location - cannot be expanded (54,000) and cannot have a track retrofitted unless they lose another 15,000 seats.

There is nowhere remotely central (or any real need) to build a new stadium/Olympic park.

A Brisbane bid while likely will be a Games with huge expenditure attached.

Melbourne and Sydney require a few temporary venues and a couple of upgrades and an Olympic Village. That is all.

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The size of the cities obviously wasn't the main reason why Beijing was picked over Almaty, especially since FAR smaller cities have hosted the WOGs more recently than Almaty. Sochi for one, Torino, Salt Lake City, etc.

No it wasn't the main factor. But let's put this into context, instead of just making a simple comparison. Sochi still beat out much, much smaller PyeongChang (albeit with Gangneung which gets overlooked a lot here, but nontheless still smaller than Sochi) & smallish Salzburg. Turin still beat out tiny Sion. And Salt Lake City won against puny Ostersund & again Sion. Not to mention, those cities are located in much larger countries TBW, Russia, Italy & the U.S. So that aspect shouldn't be so easily overlooked.

The Winter Olympics have grown almost twice as much since Lillehammer '94, that I can't see any other town of its similar size anymore taking on the current demands of the winter Games. Even in the Summer category, I don't see how that's feasible either. Especially when smaller cities have to still build up their infrastructure quite a bit (or spread out their venue concept drastically to other nearby regions so they can more comfortably accommodate the demands of the Games), that it doesn't make sense for the city post-Games & would go against Bach's "agenda 2020". Only the large cities, that already have the infrastructure already in place, are the only ones that makes sense when it comes to that, if the IOC is really serious about reducing white elephants on the host city landscape.

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Correct. Crikey Coles was a shitt.

Brisbane while warmer is still not excatly balmy in July/August. We do get temperatures below 15 celcius every once in a while. The main problem is going to be venues. Unless it a hugely spread out Games Brisbane just does not have Olympic calibre venues on hand. Furthermore the main Stadium for the 1992 bid (QE2/ANZ Stadium and now QSAC) is entirely surrounded by suburbia. a Uni campus and a cemetary. Furthermore there is horrible public transport links. The stadium is only used these days for the occasional school sports carnival and a few concerts once Suncorp Stadium's annual limit is reached. Finally the upper uncovered stands are rarely used and there was talk of them being condemned a few years back.

Suncorp Stadium - while in a great location - cannot be expanded (54,000) and cannot have a track retrofitted unless they lose another 15,000 seats.

There is nowhere remotely central (or any real need) to build a new stadium/Olympic park.

A Brisbane bid while likely will be a Games with huge expenditure attached.

Melbourne and Sydney require a few temporary venues and a couple of upgrades and an Olympic Village. That is all.

If Brisbane were to bid, I'd have the Olympic park in the Boondall Wetlands and Nudgee. Nudgee College has many existing sporting facilities which could make it the main training centre for athletes, you put the Olympic Village right next to it. A main stadium could be in this area too. Alternatively, the main stadium could be next to the existing Brisbane Entertainment Centre, alongside a new Arena and aquatics facility. The Main Media Centre could be held here too.

Brisbane could host and this is certainly not going to be their 1992 bid, but Melbourne is better suited at the moment if Australia wants a bid that uses maximum amount of existing venues. Even if it's to be held in September.

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If Brisbane were to bid, I'd have the Olympic park in the Boondall Wetlands and Nudgee. Nudgee College has many existing sporting facilities which could make it the main training centre for athletes, you put the Olympic Village right next to it. A main stadium could be in this area too. Alternatively, the main stadium could be next to the existing Brisbane Entertainment Centre, alongside a new Arena and aquatics facility. The Main Media Centre could be held here too.

Brisbane could host and this is certainly not going to be their 1992 bid, but Melbourne is better suited at the moment if Australia wants a bid that uses maximum amount of existing venues. Even if it's to be held in September.

I agree. I think a Melbourne of Sydney bid would be better thana Brisbane bid... Would not be as costly or disruptive as current venues could be used. More likely to be supported by the public and government as well.

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If Brisbane were to bid, I'd have the Olympic park in the Boondall Wetlands and Nudgee. Nudgee College has many existing sporting facilities which could make it the main training centre for athletes, you put the Olympic Village right next to it. A main stadium could be in this area too. Alternatively, the main stadium could be next to the existing Brisbane Entertainment Centre, alongside a new Arena and aquatics facility. The Main Media Centre could be held here too.

Brisbane could host and this is certainly not going to be their 1992 bid, but Melbourne is better suited at the moment if Australia wants a bid that uses maximum amount of existing venues. Even if it's to be held in September.

Boondall is pretty much built up right up to the train line and in the opposite direction up against the Gateway Arterial. There is no room for any further rail duplication or road widening. Furthermore it is protected wetland and is also a floodplain. You can't build a stadium there and the only area for new venues would be building over the car parks - which could work for a few smaller temporary venues (tennis maybe).

Chandler won't work as again shithouse transport (even the road is crappy) and it is so built up now there isn't room for much further expansion.

Realistically the only option would be building a stadium Ipswich or Beenleigh way which is a far from pretty thought.

Nudgee College has some OK training style venues but nothing in the spectrum of what the IFs demand.

The AOC may give Brisbane an airing just to keep the peace - however we all know at this time Melbourne and Sydney are the only realistic options that aren't going to incur humongous costs.

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If Brisbane were to bid, I'd have the Olympic park in the Boondall Wetlands and Nudgee. Nudgee College has many existing sporting facilities which could make it the main training centre for athletes, you put the Olympic Village right next to it. A main stadium could be in this area too. Alternatively, the main stadium could be next to the existing Brisbane Entertainment Centre, alongside a new Arena and aquatics facility. The Main Media Centre could be held here too.

Brisbane could host and this is certainly not going to be their 1992 bid, but Melbourne is better suited at the moment if Australia wants a bid that uses maximum amount of existing venues. Even if it's to be held in September.

I went to school at Nudgee College and they have great facilities but what would they do? Shut the school down for the duration of the Olympics? They do use those facilities regularly and i'm not sure how useful they would be. Very hard to accommodate for tens of thousands of athletes and media etc. Maybe for training but they recently built a retirement home nearby so it'd be hard to disrupt.

They could follow the 1992 bid plan using the wetlands which would be good. Boondall/Nudgee/Banyo is ripe for renovation and has immense space for venues and the olympic village.

I can't see the AOC going for Melboune for a few bid cycles. Unless the IOC suddenly backflips on there "promise" that the Olympics wouldn't be in September. Not to mention it would piss off NBC who i'm sure are already annoyed at Pyeongchang, Tokyo and now Beijing. But I guess we will see

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They could follow the 1992 bid plan using the wetlands which would be good. Boondall/Nudgee/Banyo is ripe for renovation and has immense space for venues and the olympic village.

Except the 1992 bid plan used the wetlands for a few venues - not the main stadium. Furthermore traffic would be a nightmare - the Gateway is busy around the clock - and there is no room for rail duplication.

Where in Nudgee/Banyo do you want to place a whole Olympic village?

The Wetlands and Nudgee Beach Park are a protected park - enough of it has been reclaimed for private housing. There is no way the State Government will flag that area for high density housing and sporting venues. Possibly over near the Hardfill station - however any construction there will be impacted by the airport expansion and height exclusion zone.

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I don't think Brisbane should host for the same reason as everybody else has said. Not enough venues, to far spread out. Melbourne and Sydney are much better options, but I think Melbourne has the upper hand due to not having hosted since '56, having the Athletics stadium already built and a lot of venues already in place to fit in with Agenda 2020. While Sydney does have it great precinct, almost all of the stadiums would been the same and Stadium Australia would've have to have huge upgrades to host the Olympics again

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