GOLDEN GLOW IS ALWAYS SPECIAL
Unscripted history, grand deeds and festive fun await if the experience of the ‘82 Games is anything to go by, writes
MASTER coach Michael Bohl was a tousle-haired teenage swimmer in 1982 when he learnt how hometown passion can charge a Commonwealth Games.
He had boarded a competitors’ bus from the Games village at Griffith University to head to the Chandler pool for morning medley training. Or so he thought.
He was in countdown mode for the Brisbane Commonwealth Games, just as the state is now for a sun-kissed Gold Coast edition.
It was still days away from a giant 13m mechanical kangaroo named Matilda stealing the show at the opening ceremony with a wink that started the awakening of an entire state.
“It was one of those big athlete buses heading to the pool and sure enough we passed a house with an Australian flag out front,” Bohl said.
“That was it for (coach) Laurie Lawrence, who always had something up his sleeve.
“He got the driver to stop, got us all out, Aussies, Canadians, Kiwis, and set everyone up in the driveway.
“It’s 7am but he knocked on the front door, got the family out and no one was leaving until everyone sung our national anthem, overseas swimmers included.
“It was part of Laurie’s way to show that these are Australia’s Games and dominating the opposition.”
Bohl won’t be pulling the same trick on the Gold Coast but he does hope the 70-strong swim squad and the broader 473-member Australian team are ignited by the same fervour.
The Bohl bloodline is a potent link between Brisbane in 1982 and Gold Coast in 2018 because, 36 years later, he is father and coach of 20-year-old breaststroker Georgia Bohl.
The 1982 Games were a pivotal force in Brisbane growing up from big provincial town to a position among Australia’s worldly cities, one equipped to host World Expo 88.
Instead of Tracey Wickham, Lisa Curry, Robert de Castella, Raelene Boyle and Co getting proud hearts beating over a gold rush of 39 prized medals, it may be Mack Horton, Ariarne Titmus, a pigtailed rugby player named Charlotte Caslick or a hot-handed netballer.
The new stands at the outdoor Games pool at Southport rise like steep cliff faces and the energy there at medal time will really be something to be a part of. The hope of Gold Coast elders is that the communities housed along, and west of, a wonderful 57km stretch of coastline will never have felt more united as one.
“I can look back and understand because the euphoria around the (‘82) Games was the making of Brisbane with the help of a big papier-mache kangaroo,” Bohl said.
It certainly wasn’t the culottes worn by our Aussie girls in the opening ceremony which still make 1982 golden girl Wickham cringe with laughter.
It certainly was, in part, the photo that went around the world from a young Brisbane newspaper snapper, Fiora Sacco.
The Queen was happily holding an athletics program two-handed in the QEII Stadium grandstand.
Click. The photo gave the illusion she was clutching an icy XXXX beer, the image adorning the back cover as an ad. Priceless. It was uniquely Queensland as the Gold Coast Games lift-off will be.
There was a march past by surf lifesavers at the 1982 opening ceremony while a knockabout archery complex groundsman caused a stir with Games organisers over attire for a Royal visit.
“They told me I’d at least have to wear a shirt,” Cec Black said at the time.
He refused, wore shorts, working boots and a bronzed chest and Prince Philip still visited the Murarrie complex.
Heightened security long ago killed the game of swapping athlete accreditations for free access.
In 1982, they doubled as an entry pass to the all-hours fun of the Sunnybank Hotel as Queenslanders lapped up 24hour liquor licensing for the first time.
Mike Keelan represented England as an 82.5kg-category weightlifter in 1982 and took the Friendly Games motto to heart.
“I’d had a few beers at doping control to get me going and thought I might as well continue after my final competition,” said the now chief executive of the Australian Weightlifting Federation.
“I ended up dancing on the tables with my ex-wife-to-be at the Sunnybank Hotel the same night.”
Keelan, as competition MC, and former partner Deb, as a technical official, will be happily working side-by-side at the weightlifting venue at Carrara.
“I’ve put on a kilo for every year since ‘82 so Australia has looked after me,” Keelan said.
“A multisport event is such a great experience and you don’t ever know the paths from there.”
Of course, there will be Games hiccups. The skydiving team, tuning up for the 1982 opening ceremony, never made an entrance because of a storm on dress-rehearsal day.
Three skydivers were swept into hail and another landed in the cemetery beside the stadium. There are no skydivers in the 2018 opening ceremony plans. Alex Baumann is Swimming Australia’s new high performance strategist. In 1982, the Canadian set the Games abuzz with the only world record in the Chandler pool in the 200m individual medley. He too met his future wife, Southport nurse Tracy Taggart, amid the post-Games revelry on the Gold Coast. Bohl finished out of a place behind Baumann in that medley final. “It was the only race I had but a privilege to be in a world-record final. Many years later and I’m coaching Alex’s son Ashton in my Gold Coast squad,” Bohl said. Unscripted history, grand deeds, new heroes, fresh inspiration, festive fun at any hour, dramas ... it’s all ahead of us on the Gold Coast.
Don’t ever let some dreary wet blanket spoil your fun with “it’s only the Commonwealth Games.” No one told that to a young Kieren Perkins in 1982.
“As a nineyear-old kid I was inspired by the 1982 Games which my parents took me to in Brisbane,” said the boy who became a two-time Olympic 1500m freestyle champion.
“My brother Jared and I completely covered our bedroom wall with the streamers we souvenired from the opening ceremony.
“It was the first time I’d seen such a carnival atmosphere and top swimmers.
“Absolutely, the Gold Coast will do the same with inspiration for another generation.”