Victoria 2026 - Commonwealth Games

[Victorian]

https://fb.watch/cr5f6JSyvj/

 

[RooBlu]

24 minutes ago, Victorian said:

 

As with all hubs, number 1 is to line up your ducks in relation to siting and constructing housing for athletes. Assuming that athletes are generally housed 6 per house and officials have a room of their own and based on predictions of 5000 athletes and some 2000 support and officials that puts the number at some 1500 houses being built across four estates. Based on Ballarat which will have around 1800 to house, they'll need to establish a greenfield site of 385-400 homes. That's achievable because prior to the pandemic Ballarat was building some 900 new homes per year. Siting would logically be near the two main proposed stadiums 2 km North on land recently cleared and approved by Council around Mount Rowan for large scale suburban expansion.

Ballarat's preparations will be more intense and concentrated because there will be fIve sites in the main stadiums area that are all adjacent to each other that will be simultaneously getting built over a three year period. While there will be partial demolition works at Mars Stadium and at the old Showgrounds, preparatory work would be commencing to construct a brand new train station in the vicinity of Norman Street. When construction of new stands at Mars Stadium is occuring between October 2023 - August 2025 the new train siding and railway station would be built and commissioned. While Mars Stadium is under construction, a new home for Ballarat athletics is likely to get built on the old Showgrounds site where it would dual use existing facilities from Mars Stadium including the new Gate 2 and southern toilets block. The new athletics complex would only then require a permanent track, a club pavillion, a carpark that would be shared with Mars Stadium and the new lights perhaps the existing lights from Mars Stadium.

I said five construction sites and so far I have discussed three. The fourth, and probably the most disruptive will be the widening of at least 1 km (possibly 2 km) of Creswick Road to a dual lane carriageway. This would impact the other three construction works. The fifth is the clearing and repurposing of the former John Valves site. The land was cleared and decontaminated over 10 years ago and has been held onto by property speculators ever since. The Ballarat Council announced back in January 2022 that it had set aside a $10 million war chest for compulsory land acquisition in the vicinity of Mars Stadium. The former industrial site will likely be cleaned up and temporarily turned into a 3000 space car park during the games with 1000 spaces permanently established for after the games.

[RooBlu]

As a P. S. to my previous post, I would anticipate all major works being finished at Mars Stadium by September 2025 because I imagine that the city and government would want to run at least two test events at the stadium which may include an AFL Final before the athletics track gets installed. The test events would be to fine tune traffic management, coordination of train services and human movement to, from and around the stadium. At the same time there might be a series of high level basketball games conducted at Selkirk Stadium to test both arenas at once.

Image below: Credit Roogal (Bigfooty) Mars Stadium April 2022.

[RooBlu]

To the Moderators, this thread probably deserves its own stand alone thread and not to be hidden away under "Bids" because it's no longer a "Bid" but an actual event. 

[Victorian]

Just now, RooBlu said:

To the Moderators, this thread probably deserves its own stand alone thread and not to be hidden away under "Bids" because it's no longer a "Bid" but an actual event. 

I agree. Same thing for Birmingham 2022. Also, the title should change to Victoria 2026 instead of Greater Victoria 

[Sir Rols]

3 hours ago, RooBlu said:

To the Moderators, this thread probably deserves its own stand alone thread and not to be hidden away under "Bids" because it's no longer a "Bid" but an actual event. 

Fair enough, though I think you’ll have to wait in queue behind Birmingham. Anyway, that’s up to @GBModerator.

I could edit the title, but that might also be a bit premature until it’s given an “official” designation. Is it indeed officially named “Victoria 2026” yet (even if I don’t see what else they could call it)?

EDIT: What the hell, I just did it anyway.

Just generally musing here, but it’s unfortunate perhaps that the board’s population/activity doesn’t really support standalone forums for the non-Olympics events any more. Or maybe it’s a reflection on how the lesser games in general have declined in prestige or popularity. But I note the Pan-Am Games used to get their own forums until Toronto 2015, but Lima 2019 didn’t. Similarly, the FIFA World Cups got their own forums up to Brazil 2014, but Russia 2018 didn’t. The Birmingham thread has barely reached 4 pages, so I don’t know if it really will warrant a dedicated forum. It’s a tribute to the Victorians here that their excitement in winning and embrace and support of sports in general has enabled this thread to grow as fast as it has so quickly.

Edited April 17, 2022 by Sir Rols

[Victorian]

Will be interesting to see what sort of handover we get given the limited prep time. I assume there will be crosses to the regional cities of Victoria and they could even get John Williamson to sing 'True Blue' an iconic Australian song or even a melody of Waltzing Matilda such as the one below- this is still my favourite performance of this grand Australian music piece... Actually now that I think of it, Denis Walter is from Geelong- he would be perfect to perform in the ceremony.

 

Below are some of the recent handovers (plus the Sydney handover from Atlanta)

Interesting fact, we have a little trend here:

OLY handover : US to Aus (Atlanta/Sydney, LA/Brisbane)

CWG handover : UK to Aus (Manchester, Eng/Melbourne, Glasgow, Sco/Gold Coast, Birmingham, Eng/Victoria)

Sydney Olympic Games 2000 (1.12.28)

Melbourne 2006 (51.20)

Dehli 2010 (53.45)

Glasgow 2014 (1.34.00)

Gold Coast 2018 (57.15)

 

Birmingham 2022 

 

[yoshi]

They really should just bring together all the pop stars who've come out of Neighbours, with it being practically as much a part of our culture as Australia's - and to see it off with it being axed this year. Like 2014 but have everyone else who aren't Kylie join in too

[Victorian]

For reference, this was the original proposed venues for events in the original Greater Victoria 2030 bid proposal

Thanks to another forum, these are likely venues atm

Based on the government’s announcement I have predicted what venues will be used. We will have a far greater idea once the Victorian State Budget is handed down on Tuesday 2nd May in two weeks time.

Geelong Cluster

Venue Prediction	Sports	Comments
Kardinia Park Aquatics Centre	Swimming, Diving	Temporary grandstands would need to be erected and spectator facilities upgraded. Good for its proximity to GMHBA Stadium.
Temporary Venue on Geelong Waterfront	Beach Volleyball	Similar to GC’s volleyball stadium in Broadbeach a temporary stadium will probably be build, presumably near Eastern Beach.
Kardinia Park (GMHBA)	T20 Cricket	It feels like a waste for the biggest regional stadium to only host cricket, hopefully another event can be found for it. If they really are committing to a regional games it probably should have the opening ceremony over the G imo.
Geelong Arena	Gymnastics	2,000 seat arena which currently hosts an NBL1 team. Probably will need an upgrade to hold more spectators.
Geelong Hockey Facility, Corio	Hockey	Good quality hockey fields in Geelong’s northern suburbs. Will need grandstands erected, probably temporary.
Geelong Arena	Table Tennis	See above.
Streets of Geelong + Eastern Beach	Triathlon	Good chance to show off Geelong and its waterfront.

Ballarat Cluster

Venue Prediction	Sports	Comments
Mars Stadium	Athletics	Will need to be upgraded to host a larger crowd. A grandstand on the South End seems inevitable at least. Hopefully a new train station built nearby too.
Ballarat Sports and Events Centre	Boxing	Opened in 2019. Seems sufficient in its current state. 3,000 seat basketball court - attendance for Boxing can be higher with additional seats around the ring.
Eastern Oval	T20 Cricket	With Mars used for Athletics this leaves Eastern Oval for cricket. Has hosted WBBL in recent years. Has a low amount of seats, perhaps more will be needed?

Bendigo Cluster

Venue Prediction	Sports	Comments
Many Options (?)	Lawn Bowls	There are numerous pre-existing lawn bowls clubs around Bendigo. Presumably one of these will be selected and some temporary grandstands erected.
Bendigo Stadium	Netball	Good quality 4,000 seat arena. Has recently hosted NBL and Super Netball. Diamonds game would easily sell out but can’t really see how a capacity upgrade would be possible.
Queen Elizabeth Oval	T20 Cricket	Very picturesque oval. Hope it is used for cricket. Will probably need some spectator upgrades (but leave the heritage grandstand alone!) Additional seating could be added to its East side if there is room.
Bendigo Stadium (?)	Squash	Not sure what is required to host Squash. Maybe Bendigo stadium could be configured for it before/after Netball is finished.
Bendigo Stadium	Weightlifting	Would be a suitable venue. But if Squash is to be there as well maybe an additional venue will need to be found.

Gippsland Cluster

Venue Prediction	Sports	Comments
Gippsland Regional Indoor Stadium, Traralgon	Badminton	Recently upgraded arena in Traralgon. Has recently hosted NBL. 3,000 capacity main arena. Should be fine for Badminton.
Latrobe City Stadium, Morwell	Rugby Sevens	The only real rectangular stadium in regional Vic. Has recently hosted A-League and W-League. Will need some pretty solid upgrades though as it’s looking a bit run down.
Ted Summerton Reserve, Moe	T20 Cricket	Has hosted Big Bash recently so is the natural choice for a T20 venue.

[RooBlu]

I would guess that it would utilise the services of a well known Victorian singing artist and use a montage of video drone footage. Given about 120 days notice it will need to be simple (accounting for concept development, props construction, costume making, song writing, choreography, rehearsal, and finally transportation). My guess is that they will use an existing well-known Australian song or tune. Even the classic George Dreyfus's "RUSH" might hit the right note. What ever the outcome, I'll bet that there is a production company beaverishly working on smashing together a seven to ten minute display as we speak. 

[RooBlu]

45 minutes ago, Victorian said:

For reference, this was the original proposed venues for events in the original Greater Victoria 2030 bid proposal

 

The proposal above would have been ambitious to put it politely. Would they put a 30,000 capacity temporary athletics stadium 200 km North of Melbourne and have based 2500 of the athletes out of Shepparton? Consider that Shepparton is a two-hour drive or four-hour round trip from Melbourne. Bendigo has a great basketball stadium but its indoor aquatic centre is smaller than Ballarat's 800 seat facility and the facility would virtually have needed to be completely rebuilt. An indoor aquatics centre in regional Victoria was definitely never going to be practical. The Tom Flood cycling velodrome is concrete, not oval shaped, outdoor and would have required a total rebuild. Ballarat's Ken Kay Badminton Stadium has served Ballarat and Victoria well since opening in 1977 but it's getting long in the tooth and likely wouldn't have been used. The GMHBA Stadium never came into consideration for athletics at the time which I thought was a great misuse of a great facility. I think that the State government have done their homework well and struck the right balance and best compromise of venues and locations.

[RooBlu]

22 hours ago, RooBlu said:

As with all hubs, number 1 is to line up your ducks in relation to siting and constructing housing for athletes. Assuming that athletes are generally housed 6 per house and officials have a room of their own and based on predictions of 5000 athletes and some 2000 support and officials that puts the number at some 1500 houses being built across four estates. Based on Ballarat which will have around 1800 to house, they'll need to establish a greenfield site of 385-400 homes. That's achievable because prior to the pandemic Ballarat was building some 900 new homes per year. Siting would logically be near the two main proposed stadiums 2 km North on land recently cleared and approved by Council around Mount Rowan for large scale suburban expansion.

Ballarat's preparations will be more intense and concentrated because there will be fIve sites in the main stadiums area that are all adjacent to each other that will be simultaneously getting built over a three year period. While there will be partial demolition works at Mars Stadium and at the old Showgrounds, preparatory work would be commencing to construct a brand new train station in the vicinity of Norman Street. When construction of new stands at Mars Stadium is occuring between October 2023 - August 2025 the new train siding and railway station would be built and commissioned. While Mars Stadium is under construction, a new home for Ballarat athletics is likely to get built on the old Showgrounds site where it would dual use existing facilities from Mars Stadium including the new Gate 2 and southern toilets block. The new athletics complex would only then require a permanent track, a club pavillion, a carpark that would be shared with Mars Stadium and the new lights perhaps the existing lights from Mars Stadium.

I said five construction sites and so far I have discussed three. The fourth, and probably the most disruptive will be the widening of at least 1 km (possibly 2 km) of Creswick Road to a dual lane carriageway. This would impact the other three construction works. The fifth is the clearing and repurposing of the former John Valves site. The land was cleared and decontaminated over 10 years ago and has been held onto by property speculators ever since. The Ballarat Council announced back in January 2022 that it had set aside a $10 million war chest for compulsory land acquisition in the vicinity of Mars Stadium. The former industrial site will likely be cleaned up and temporarily turned into a 3000 space car park during the games with 1000 spaces permanently established for after the games.

The image below from BING illustrates the size and zones of pre-games stadium zone development in Ballarat:

[SportLightning]

1 hour ago, RooBlu said:

The proposal above would have been ambitious to put it politely. Would they put a 30,000 capacity temporary athletics stadium 200 km North of Melbourne and have based 2500 of the athletes out of Shepparton? Consider that Shepparton is a two-hour drive or four-hour round trip from Melbourne. Bendigo has a great basketball stadium but its indoor aquatic centre is smaller than Ballarat's 800 seat facility and the facility would virtually have needed to be completely rebuilt. An indoor aquatics centre in regional Victoria was definitely never going to be practical. The Tom Flood cycling velodrome is concrete, not oval shaped, outdoor and would have required a total rebuild. Ballarat's Ken Kay Badminton Stadium has served Ballarat and Victoria well since opening in 1977 but it's getting long in the tooth and likely wouldn't have been used. The GMHBA Stadium never came into consideration for athletics at the time which I thought was a great misuse of a great facility. I think that the State government have done their homework well and struck the right balance and best compromise of venues and locations.

It was a long process to find the 2026 Commonwealth Games host.

[Victorian]

The 140th running of the Powercor Stawell Gift is being ran at Stawell today in Regional Victoria in front of a bumper crowd. A quality event for regional Vic.

 

 

[AustralianFan]

Geelong’s average weather in March looks pretty good for swimming/diving events at the upgraded outdoor  Kardinia Aquatics Centre, with temporary grandstands in 2026.

Melbourne’s Games we’re held 15-23 March 2006.  
(only 3 days with precipitation on average)

@Daily high temperatures decrease by 2°C, from 24°C to 21°C, rarely falling below 17°C or exceeding 32°C. “

“Daily low temperatures decrease by 2°C, from 14°C to 12°C, rarely falling below 8°C or exceeding 18°C. “

[RooBlu]

On 4/13/2022 at 4:24 AM, AustralianFan said:

The Kiwis are happy too

 

Geezus, how can you possibly tell? Their beaks are quite long and curved 

[AustralianFan]

The Victorian Government has just announced that electric buses will enter the regional bus network for the first time as part of the Andrews Labor Government’s three-year Zero Emissions Bus Trial – creating a cleaner and more sustainable transport network.

These will also no doubt be part of the wider transport network during the Commonwealth Games in 4 years time.

Five Victorian bus operators have been selected to trial 41 electric buses on existing bus routes in Melbourne, Seymour and Traralgon as part of the $20 million trial program.

The trial will provide practical information including how electric buses perform and the energy and charging requirements for different types of routes.

The majority of the electric buses being introduced through the trial will be built at Volgren’s Dandenong South manufacturing facility.

[SportLightning]

It looks like Victoria 2026 will be the first to use zero emission buses.

[AustralianFan]

30,000 Athletics Venue Capacity:  MARS Stadium, Ballarat

Although to be confirmed in the Victorian Budget, the capacity of MARS Stadium for athletics will be lifted to 30,000 for the Games with temporary grandstands, according to this media report quoting Ballarat CEO Evan King:

“Ballarat’s Mars Stadium will host the athletics events, however details are yet to be revealed for its upgrade, with redevelopment plans expected to be announced after the Victorian State Budget on the May 3.”

“Ballarat City CEO Mr Evan King has been quoted in the Ballarat Courier indicating that the stadium is likely to be permanently expanded to a 20,000 capacity as part of an upgrade,  with temporary grandstands to expand it to 30,000 for the Games.”

“Upgrades are also expected to include new lighting as well as the addition of a permanent athletics track nearby, upgrading of the adjacent Midland Highway and possible construction of a new Northern train station nearby.”

 

[AustralianFan]

Gippsland to Bendigo Cycling Road Race

The coverage of the stunning scenery and vistas as athletes power on during the Gippsland to Bendigo Cycling Road Race at the 2026 Commonwealth Games will make for stunning television but will also be a great tourism boost for Regional Victoria.

[RooBlu]

1 hour ago, AustralianFan said:

Gippsland to Bendigo Cycling Road Race

The coverage of the stunning scenery and vistas as athletes power on during the Gippsland to Bendigo Cycling Road Race at the 2026 Commonwealth Games will make for stunning television but will also be a great tourism boost for Regional Victoria.

That road race would be quite stunning if the route feeds through either the Dandenongs, King Lake, Flowerdale, Seymour, Heathcote and Bendigo. The hilly portions are absolutely peaceful and pictureaque but would be all about stamina and tactics, while the Seymour to Bendigo leg would offer plenty of opportunity to film wild kangaroos and offer a flatter and racier stage. There is a reason that 1000s of recreational motorcyclists travel through Seymour via Kinglake and Eildon each weekend.

[SportLightning]

That's a lot of venues for 2026.

[RooBlu]

4 hours ago, SportLightning said:

That's a lot of venues for 2026.

Those towns are along the road race route between the start point in Gippsland and the finish point at Bendigo. 

[AustralianFan]

Support coming from Birmingham 2022

 

 

[RooBlu]

On 4/21/2022 at 6:47 AM, AustralianFan said:

Support coming from Birmingham 2022

 

 

No doubt there will be lessons to learn from Birmingham as there are with every Games. After Birmingham Mr Reid and his team will be looking for a new project and jobs. Their skills and experience should be considered by Victoria 2026 organisers, even if they are employed in a consultancy role.