A new main stadium for the Brisbane 2032 Olympics is unveiled amid a major plan overhaul

BRISBANE:  A 60,000-seat stadium for the Brisbane Olympics to be built in inner-city parkland has been unveiled as part of a major overhaul of planning for the 2032 Summer Games.

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

It's been more than 1,340 days since that IOC decision in 2021, and local organizers still haven't commenced the Olympic venue construction program. In the meantime, there's been changes in government at federal and state levels.

After 150 days in office, Crisafulli said: “The time has come to just get on with it — get on with it, and build.”

“We are going to start immediately," he said. "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.

Los Angeles is hosting the 2028 Summer Games and Brisbane is next on the list.

The initial 11 years that Brisbane had to prepare is now down to seven, and leaders at all levels of government and sports federations have said it's time to stop squabbling over venues and start building them.

Newly elected IOC president Kirsty Coventry has overseen the initial stages of planning on behalf of the Olympic movement and has been updated on the changes by Andrew Liveris, chairman of the 2032 organizing committee.

Liveris said there'd been daily engagement between a review panel assessing all venue options and the local organizing committee, which is responsible for running the Games.

“The stage matters," he said. “We've still got 7½ years to go, and we have a plan. None of this is embarrassing — 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. The IOC aimed to cut the cost of campaigning and building venues, and also avoid vote-buying scandals.

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 centerpiece of the 2032 Games when a previous review panel appointed in 2023 recommended a new stadium in city parkland.

The costs of the Gabba rebuild had 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 upgrade an existing rugby stadium to host the opening and closing ceremonies, and to renovate an aging facility built in the city's southern outskirts to host the 1982 Commonwealth Games as the track and field venue.

Quirk said at the time a new stadium on the former council-owned golf course at Victoria Park would be marginally more than the full Gabba rebuild but with better operational efficiencies and outcomes.

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

A croc, or not?Local media reported ahead the venue announcements that rowing would be held on the Fitzroy River at Rockhampton on the central Queensland coast. Crocodiles are regularly spotted in the river.

.Crisafulli confirmed the proposed Fitzroy River venue, 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 most weekends and crocodiles weren't a problem.

Rowing Australia said the crocodile concerns were overblown in the media but raised some issues about the river current. Liveris said World Rowing would visit with 2032 organizers in May.

He also wasn't worried about crocodiles at the rowing venue.

“There's sharks in the ocean and we still do sailing and we still do surfing,” he said, downplaying the impact of wildlife. “It's a bit kind of Hollywood-ish. I'm not worried about crocodiles."