(ATR) Thomas Bach says he is "impressed" with Queensland’s detailed feasibility studies on a possible bid for the Summer Games.
The IOC president met with Brisbane Lord mayor Adrian Schrinner, the city’s ex-mayor Graham Quirk and Sunshine Coast mayor Mark Jamieson on Monday. He was accompanied by Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates.
Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Bach was upbeat about what he called "well-founded" studies into a potential Queensland bid. Schrinner chairs the Council of Mayors of South East Queensland which commissioned the feasibility research.
"Now it is up to the Australians to make their minds up, to take the necessary decisions and then to say whether they want to follow up on this project on hosting the Olympic Games in a concerted effort with the different levels of government and the Australian Olympic Committee," Bach said.
Thirteen years out from the 2032 Olympics, Bach remarked on the expressions of interest already shown in the Games. North and South Korean NOCS met with IOC officials earlier this year and have already said they will push ahead with plans for a possible joint bid.
"For the IOC this is very encouraging that already now we have a number of cities and NOCs who are studying and are interested in organising this games in 2032 because it shows the growing relevance of the Olympic Games worldwide but also for the hosts," Bach told reporters in Brisbane.
Schrinner said the next step for South East Queensland – whose bid would include Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and 2018 Commonwealth Games host Gold Coast – was to get the federal and state governments involved while continuing feasibility work on an Olympic bid.
There was no talk Monday about how much it might cost for Queensland to stage the Games; securing funding commitments from the federal and state governments is key to advancing Olympic plans.
"This is something that we are not doing on a wing and a prayer. It has to be well researched," Schrinner told reporters.
"We have to be able to demonstrate to our communities the benefits of this for the long term and also put to the test this cost-neutrality to make sure that going forward we get value for money and we get the infrastructure that our region needs as it grows.
"There is still a lot of work to be done but we are very excited about the prospects of this feasibility work and whether we bid or not," he added.
Bach said the IOC would contribute at least $1.8 billion to the 2032 Olympic host, the same amount heading to the Los Angeles 2028 Games. "So far we have no indication that this will be less for 2032," he said.
"I think this figure was new to the mayors and I could see them starting calculating in their heads and what this means for their feasibility study and for their budget."
Bach also used the press conference to flag up the IOC’s latest shake-up of the Olympic bidding procedure.
"We have to take the next step as an evolution of the candidature procedure. We made the revolution with Agenda 2020 by going away from the tender procedure we had before and focusing more on the dialogue and the cooperation.
"Now we feel the next step should be taken and we should study whether we can make the candidature procedure even more target-oriented, even more flexible and even more cooperative on a more bilateral level than we have it now."
Bach first announced this bidding revamp at an IOC news conference following an executive board meeting in March, promising to reboot the candidature procedure for the 2030 and 2032 Games.
A new IOC working group led by Bach ally Coates has been assigned the task of coming up with a new package of measures to transform Olympic bidding. The first fruits of their work will be discussed at the IOC Session in Lausanne next month. In March, Bach said he hoped the five-member taskforce would deliver "some guidelines, some direction, some principles".
IOC board member Coates, speaking in Brisbane today, said Queensland’s feasibility study had over the last two years "addressed much of the dialogue that we have been encouraging".
Commenting on the IOC taskforce’s work, he said: "The key now will be coming up with improved procedures that will give us a more flexible approach and opportunities for a more targeted approach to this."
The Coates-led panel is looking at increasing flexibility in the bid procedure, extending the dialogue timeframe as part of the invitation phase used in the 2026 process, targeting certain cities and regions to encourage bids and reviewing the timing of host city decisions.
Reported by Mark Bisson
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