{"id":57009,"date":"2026-07-23T15:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/57009\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T15:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:35:07","slug":"olympic-countdown-clock-raises-venue-timeline-questions-for-brisbane-2032-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/57009\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic countdown clock raises venue timeline questions for Brisbane 2032"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) \u2014 A pesky native bird appeared on the podium almost on cue as organizers prepared to unveil a countdown clock marking six years to go until the 2032 Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner noted the timely white ibis in his welcoming remarks, joking with the crowd that it wouldn’t be an event in Brisbane without the appearance of a \u201cbin chicken,\u201d as the bird is colloquially known.<\/p>\n

There’s a small, humorous push locally for the ibis to become a mascot for the Brisbane Games rather than one of Australia’s more widely known native animals such as the kangaroo or the koala.<\/p>\n

Schrinner didn’t miss a beat and the bird moved off before the big digital Omega clock officially started counting down Thursday in the downtown Queen Street mall. <\/p>\n

That was a matter of hours after the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority published revamped designs for the National Aquatic Center that will host Olympic events.<\/p>\n

A ticking timeline<\/p>\n

The new clock put even more emphasis on the diminishing time for construction for the Olympics, with no major works yet underway on the 3.6 billion Australian dollar ($2.6 billion) main stadium<\/a> almost five years after Brisbane was awarded rights<\/a> to the Summer Games.<\/p>\n

Andrew Liveris<\/a>, president of the Brisbane 2032 organizing committee, said there’s no cause for panic.<\/p>\n

\u201cSix years is perfectly fine in construction, even under stress conditions,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m very confident that the contingencies are built (in) to allow that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liveris said he briefed IOC president Kirsty Coventry<\/a> as recently as Monday in New York, in the wake of the World Cup<\/a> final.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a long conversation about timelines, venues, sports, and we\u2019re confident it\u2019s not 6 minutes to midnight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The International Olympic Committee last year backed the Queensland government\u2019s revised venue plan after several false starts,<\/a> saying the Brisbane Games were \u201con the right path.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are still groups opposed to building major sports venues in the downtown parklands, and more general concern over rising costs of staging the Games.<\/p>\n

GIICA, the coordination authority, only took over possession of the Victoria Park site for the 63,000-seat main stadium last month, after police removed protesters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Questions over aquatic center revamp<\/p>\n

It won’t get control of the nearby site for the aquatic venue until September. Organizers haven’t revealed if the temporary Olympic capacity \u2014 initially projected to be 25,000 \u2014 for the aquatic center had been scaled down to avoid cost blowouts.<\/p>\n

Whatever that temporary capacity is, Schrinner said the legacy outcome \u2014 a permanent 8,000-seat venue \u2014 would be \u201cfantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Queensland state government, which is the major backer of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games with support from the federal and local governments, sent the original concept for the aquatics venue back to planning for budgetary reasons. <\/p>\n

The Queensland \u201cgovernment is doing the responsible thing, in these conditions and changing costs,\u201d Schrinner said. \u201cYou have to make adjustments to the plan, and that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening, it\u2019s a responsible thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than a dozen new sports venues are in the pipeline, including a contentious rowing center in Rockhampton, a coastal city in Central Queensland. Critics argue the impact of tidal flow and crocodile habitat in the Fitzroy River make it unsuitable to host Olympic events.<\/p>\n

Liveris said all venues were still going through validation reporting, including rowing.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now we\u2019ve had no red lights and some very good greens, and a couple of yellows,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they\u2019re being worked on for later this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liveris said he was preparing a revised \u201cbottom-up budget\u201d to present early next year, after the IOC has finalized the sports program.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP sports: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/sports<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRISBANE, Australia (AP) \u2014 A pesky native bird appeared on the podium almost on cue as organizers prepared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[37848,99,18996,158],"class_list":["post-57009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brisbane","tag-s","tag-brisbane","tag-olympic-games","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}