RELIVE GAMES ROMANCE? BE OUR GUEST!
PRINCESS Mary of Denmark has been offered the chance to turn back the clock to the night the former Tasmanian met her prince. The Gold Coast’s Federal Tourism Minister Steve Ciobo used a chance meeting with the princess in France to invite her, Crown Prince Frederik and their four children to the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games next year. The couple, pictured, famously met at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
FEDERAL Minister Steve Ciobo hopes the Gold Coast’s Commonwealth Games will be a love match for Princess Mary of Denmark.
Mr Ciobo, in France for the OECD Forum, has extended a Games invite to the Tasmanian-born Princess who first met Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark at the Slip Inn pub during the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
Romance blossomed and by 2003 the pair were engaged and they married a year later.
Minister Ciobo yesterday gave her a surfboard gift and told her the Games in April next year would be a “good excuse for her to visit”.
“I told Princess Mary how wonderful the Gold Coast is and what a great time she’d have with the family,” Mr Ciobo said. “To help remind Princess Mary of home, I gave her a surfboard with an image of a kangaroo.”
The Hobart-born wife of Frederik Christian, Denmark’s heir to the throne, told Mr Ciobo her sons would probably lay claim to the surfboard.
If she comes for the Games, it will be her first visit since a family holiday in December, 2015, when son Prince Christian had to be rescued from the Mermaid Beach surf.
The Prince, then 10, was swept off his feet while between the flags and lifeguard Nick Malcolm pulled him out, later saying it helped that the youngster hadn’t panicked.