New Olympic Stadium, Crocodile-Inhabited Rowing Course Part of Brisbane 2032 Overhaul

A new 60,000-seat arena will be built as part of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in Brisbane to host the Opening and Closing Ceremonies while the famous Gabba stadium will be demolished after the Games, the Queensland government announced on Tuesday as its review of the Games’ venues was announced.

The multi-sport arena, to be built in the Victoria Park area, will become Brisbane’s home for cricket in place of the Gabba, a world-renowned ground built in 1895. That was one of several highlights announced by Queensland Premier David Crisafulli, the third premier of Queensland in the almost four years since the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2032 Games to Brisbane.

The new arena announcement was after Crisafulli made numerous pledges before the 2024 state elections that a new stadium would not be built in place of the Gabba. Cricket is being held in Los Angeles in 2028 and is likely to be retained in 2032 and could be played at the Gabba before the arena is torn down.

“I have to own that and I will,” said Crisafulli. “I am sorry, it’s my decision and I accept that decision.”

The full venue plan is one that organizers said would have a focus on sports tourism with events such as sailing around the Whitsunday islands and surfing at the Gold Coast. However, the one thing a lot of media focused on was plans for rowing to be on the Fitzroy River, which is known to host saltwater crocodiles but the government says the waters are safe.

Sarah Cook, the head of Rowing Australia, said the crocodile concerns were overblown in the media. Andrew Liveris, chairman of the 2032 organizing committee, agreed.

“There are sharks in the ocean and we still do surfing … this is can do, not can’t do, please flip the mindset here,” Liveris said. “Creatures below the water .. that’s a bit kind of Hollywood-ish.”

“If it’s good enough for central Queensland kids, I reckon it’s good enough for Pierre from Paris,” Crisafulli added.

Brisbane organizers plan to host sports in coastal cities and sites from the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coasts in the south to Cairns in Queensland’s far north and to the gateway of the Outback at Toowoomba, where an equestrian hub will be built.

The state and federal governments initially agreed a 50-50 funding split on a venue budget of $4.4 billion. The bulk of federal money was for a 25,000-seat aquatics center. That project has been scrapped, with Crisafulli’s government aiming to spread the federal funding around other venues and seeking private-sector funding to build a similar arena on state-owned land near the Gabba, outside the scope of the Olympics.

Brisbane was awarded the Games in 2021 immediately before the pandemic-delayed Games in Tokyo. Brisbane will be working soon with a new chair for the IOC Coordination Commission; the previous chair was Kirsty Coventry, who last week was elected the next IOC President. Coventry has been updated on the changes, Liveris said.

Tuesday’s announcement was what organizers and Queensland hopes is a reset for the 2032 Games. What was 11 years’ notice of the Games coming to Brisbane is now under eight years and by now, the sporting program would have been announced; instead, that is being delayed until next year.

A year ago was when organizers said the Gabba would not be demolished and a new stadium rebuilt. Instead, then-Premier Steven Miles said a different stadium would host the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and the Gabba would be used for the Games, then renovated. Miles only took over as premier after Annastacia Palaszczuk,who headed Brisbane’s successful bid to host the 2032 Games, quit in December.

“The time has come to just get on with it — get on with it and build,” Crisafulli said, marking his 150th day in office after beating Miles in an election. “We are going to start immediately. We’ve got seven years to make it work and make it work we will.”