GOLDEN CHANCE TO BE THE CENTRE OF ELITE SPORT
It makes sense on every level for the Australian Institute of Sport to be relocated from Canberra to the Gold Coast as our top athletes prepare for elite competitions
NOW, more than ever, it’s time for the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) to be relocated from Canberra to the Gold Coast.
With the 2032 Olympics in Queensland, maybe the athletes themselves will make the decision for the federal government, opting to train here with or without the AIS.
There’s little doubt the AIS is a spectacular success story, born out of the ruins of the Montreal Olympics, where Australia failed to win a gold medal.
Since then, Australia has become a powerhouse, without question, on a per capita basis, one of the great sporting nations of the world.
Our recent performance in Tokyo was astonishing, finishing sixth on the medal tally, with 17 gold medals.
Yet we base our elite athletes in Canberra, one of the most inhospitable places in the country, freezing in winter and scorching in summer.
It is well established that heat and humidity work well for elite athletes and that’s what they get on the Gold Coast, especially during the warmer months.
It makes sense on every level for our top athletes to be living and training on the Gold Coast as they prepare for elite competition, such as the 2024 Paris Games and 2028 in Los Angeles.
Forty years ago, when the AIS was first established in
Griffith, Bond and Southern Cross are in the perfect position to take the next step and become world leaders in sports science
Canberra, anything that started with “Australian’’ was based in the national capital.
How things have changed, particularly in the sporting world. Nowadays, athletes seek warmer climates to train and hone their skills, many already basing themselves in Queensland.
The symbolism of switching the AIS from Canberra to the Gold Coast is also a massive shot in the arm for the southeast’s Olympics 2032 build-up.
The Gold Coast has a golden opportunity to be not just a national base for top athletes but a global hub.
Sports science is part and parcel of housing our best athletes and with our superior tertiary education system, the opportunity to turn the Coast into a world-leading research and scientific hub is clear.
We often talk about what is the X factor economic opportunity for the Gold Coast over the next 50 years and the gift of hosting an Olympics provides extraordinary opportunity.
Why can’t we have the best sports science universities in
the world? Deakin University and La Trobe University, both in Melbourne, have worldrenowned reputations for their sports science.
Griffith, Bond and Southern Cross are in the perfect position to take the next step and become world leaders in sports science, especially if the AIS is relocated from Canberra.
The Gold Coast is good at talking about itself. Talking itself up. Roundtables here, forums there, tourism summits at 20 paces.
But we’re actually not that good at getting things done. The M1 is a shemozzle and the Palaszczuk government couldn’t give two hoots.
We’re running out of land and housing affordability is
probably the worst in Queensland. On any given Sunday, you won’t get a carpark within a half kilometre of any of the popular beaches.
We haven’t built any major tourism infrastructure in two decades, although the theme parks are starting to reinvent themselves now.
Cablecar linking the green to the gold? Forget it. Cruise ship terminal hosting thousands of people every week? A pipedream.
We’ve lost the V8s two years in a row. Surfers Paradise looks like Beirut on a good day. Our most recent claim to fame is hosting 15,000 schoolies, who broke the world record for peeing and vomiting in Cavill Avenue.
Something’s got to give. Where are the new leaders coming through? At least the AIS relocation is tangible and real. It is certainly an issue likely to come before Prime Minister Scott Morrison in coming months in the lead-up to the election.
Just recently, Mayor Tom Tate was highly critical of federal Liberal MPS, Angie Bell, Karen Andrews and Stuart Robert, for the Morrison government’s lack of support for the city.
They hit back, saying they’d delivered in spades, promptly announcing extra federal money for the Coomera Connector.
Maybe the relocation of the AIS might just get
Mr Tate back onside.