A new Olympic stadium and a crocodile-inhabited rowing course unveiled in Brisbane 2032 overhaul

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Sailing the Whitsunday islands. Surfing an iconic Gold Coast break. Rowing in a crocodile-inhabited river in Rockhampton.

Extra tourism-focused venues and a new 60,000-seat Olympic stadium to be built in inner-city parkland have been unveiled as part of a major overhaul of planning for the 2032 Brisbane Games.

David Crisafulli, the third premier of Queensland state in the almost four years since the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2032 Games to the capital of Queensland state, announced the latest plans on a rainy Tuesday.

He said it’s not going to be like last year’s Paris Olympics or the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, promising instead it'll be uniquely-Queensland.

It’s been more than 1,340 days since that IOC decision in 2021, and local organizers still haven’t started the Olympic venue construction program.

“The time has come to just get on with it — get on with it, and build,” Crisafulli said, marking his 150th day in office. “We are going to start immediately. We’ve got seven years to make it work — and make it work we will.”

A 25,000-seat aquatics center has also been proposed in an Olympic precinct that includes the new main stadium at Victoria Park, a former golf course near downtown Brisbane.

The 11 years that Brisbane had to prepare is now down to seven, and leaders at federal, state and local levels agree it’s time to stop squabbling over venues and start building them.

Newly elected IOC president Kirsty Coventry, who oversaw the initial planning stages as head of the IOC’s coordination commission, has been updated on the changes by Andrew Liveris, chairman of the 2032 organizing committee.

“The stage matters,” Liveris said. “We’ve still got 7½ years to go, and we have a plan. This is a go-get-it-done plan.”

Brisbane was the first Summer Games host picked in a new process to put a preferred candidate into exclusive, fast-track talks without facing a rival bidder in a vote. With it, the IOC aimed to cut the cost of campaigning and building venues.

A croc, or not?

Domestic media earlier this week raised concerns about crocodiles at the Olympic rowing venue when it emerged that events would be staged on the Fitzroy River.

Crisafulli confirmed the Fitzroy River venue at Rockhampton, on the central Queensland coast, and said a “multitude” of events had been staged there — including Australia’s pre-Olympic rowing camps. He said local kids swam and paddled in the river and crocodiles wouldn’t be a problem.

Sarah Cook, the head of Rowing Australia, said the crocodile concerns were overblown in the media. But she raised some issues about the river current and its suitability for Olympic competition.

Liveris, who said World Rowing would visit the venue in May, also wasn’t worried about crocs.

“There are sharks in the ocean and we still do surfing ... this is can do, not can’t do, please flip the mindset here,” he said. “Creatures below the water .. that’s a bit kind of Hollywood-ish.”

False starts

It’s been a year since local organizers scrapped initial plans to demolish and rebuild the Gabba, an iconic cricket ground, as the Games centerpiece when a previous review panel appointed in 2023 recommended a new stadium in city parkland.

The costs soared and the concept lost the support of the Australian Olympic Committee.

The premier at the time, Steven Miles, rejected the recommendations of that review led by former Brisbane Mayor Graham Quirk. Miles instead planned to use a rugby stadium to host the ceremonies, and to renovate the aging facility built to host the 1982 Commonwealth Games.

Crisafulli went to a state election late last year promising no new stadiums, but then instituted another independent review quickly after taking power for the Liberal-National coalition. His cabinet went through the recommendations of the 100-day review and approved new plans Monday.

Opposition

A group of protesters gathered outside the riverside location where Crisafulli confirmed the revised venue plan. Dozens more protestors converged on Victoria Park, holding up “Hands OFF Victoria Park” signs and shouting “shame” while listening to news of the announcement.

The Save Victoria Park community group is fundraising for a legal challenge in a bid to prevent the stadium being built in the hilly, 64-hectare (158-acre) park.

Regions and legacy

Brisbane organizers plan to host Olympic sports in coastal cities and sites from the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coasts in the south to Cairns in Queensland’s far north and to the gateway of the Outback at Toowoomba, where an equestrian hub will be built.

The state and federal governments initially agreed a 50-50 funding split on a venue budget of just over 7 billion Australian dollars ($4.4 billion).

The bulk of federal money was for an indoor arena adjacent to the city center that was initially set to host Olympic aquatics in a drop-in pool and later be transformed to host the National Basketball League and concerts.

That project has been scrapped, with Crisafulli’s government aiming to spread the federal funding around other venues and seeking private-sector funding to build a similar arena on state-owned land near the Gabba, outside the scope of the Olympics.

Under the new plan, the Gabba is set to be demolished after the 2032 Games and replaced with housing. The main existing tenants — the Brisbane Lions in the Australian Football League and Queensland Cricket — have endorsed the plan to relocate them to the Victoria Park stadium that will have a post-Olympic and Paralympic capacity of 63,000.

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