Troop plan to run town
GEELONG Olympian Lee Troop will hold a meeting with Greater Geelong councillors today as his vision of bringing a major running festival in the city continues to move closer to reality.
Troop, who competed in the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympic marathons, will also meet with stakeholders, including VicRoads, Victoria Police and emergency services, to thrash out key details such as dates and proposed routes for the event.
The likely route will encompass parts of the city centre and GMHBA Stadium, but will primarily take in the stretch of Corio Bay between Pt Henry and Rippleside.
Troop, who returns to his hometown of Boulder in Colorado on Monday, said he was confident that approval for the event to proceed was getting close.
“Everything has been positive from the day I stated that I wanted to put a running festival in Geelong, but the hard part now is getting the final pieces together to make sure that it all comes to fruition,” he said.
“I don’t think anything will be locked away (after Friday’s meeting) but it will be one step closer to the ultimate goal.
“The event will be a lot of work and has the potential to compete against some of the other major running festivals around the country. I have been through the stages of putting a major running event together and I know what the city likes and what it doesn’t like, what the impact is on residents and where the impact is on businesses.
“The big one is the date and is such a hard thing to do. There is no right or wrong, and the Geelong major events calendar is extremely saturated from November to March, but then football season starts. So it is just trying to find something that fits into the calendar and when it fits in well for Geelong and where everyone will get the most benefit from it.”
The preference is to hold the running festival in March or April, but the stronger likelihood is that the Queen’s Birthday weekend will be used, with the minor events to be held on Sunday and the half and full marathons to be run on the public holiday on the Monday.
At this stage there are plans to use the title of a former running event in Geelong — the City by the Bay Fun Run — and Troop said while there were logistic obstacles to overcome, he had no doubt the festival would be well received.
“36,000 people ran the streets of Melbourne last week and got to finish in the MCG, the city centre was closed. So if Melbourne can do it, Geelong can do it,” he said. “Gold Coast closes its streets down and they run along that beautiful waterfront, Sydney closes down the Harbour Bridge, and I know we are not a major city but we are the biggest regional city in the country. So they would have more headaches than us and I feel like there is no reason why Geelong can’t be on that platform with all of those other places.”