Brisbane’s likely bid for the 2028 Olympics could not have been better timed with the IOC "so conscious of public fears about the escalating costs of hosting Games that it is prepared to accept disposable facilities," according to Wayne Smith of THE AUSTRALIAN. The 12-strong Council of Mayors of southeast Queensland "will meet on Friday to consider whether to submit a largely Brisbane-based but regional bid for the 2028 Games, with all indications being that the vote will be overwhelmingly in favour of proceeding." Brisbane "has two critical factors working in its favor: by deciding now, it has three years to get its basic Olympic plan in order before it would need to start seriously lobbying ahead of the 2021 IOC decision; and rarely before have candidate cities held such a strong bargaining position." Sydney 2000 Organizing Committee COO Jim Sloman said that "one of the questions Brisbane would have to consider was whether to scatter the Olympic sports around the southeast Queensland region -- making particular use of facilities built for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games -- or to congregate them together in an Olympic Park." Sloman: "If you build an Olympic Park like Sydney did, like London did for the 2012 Games, it’s a lot harder to deal with the logistics" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 3/3).
NO ADMITTANCE: In Sydney, Nicole Jeffery wrote the family and friends of Australia’s Olympic athletes "will no longer have access to the athletes’ village at next year’s Rio Olympics" as part of new Australia Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller’s push to "enhance the professionalism and performance" of the team. Chiller revealed that "the team practice of giving daily guest passes to athletes’ family and friends would be discontinued, but that alternative arrangements would be made for athletes to meet their loved ones at the team headquarters outside the village" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 3/3).
