A state government is standing by its choice of a crocodile habitat as Brisbane’s Olympic rowing venue as world officials prepare to assess the controversial site.<\/p>\n
Olympic Minister Tim Mander insists the 2032 rowing event will be held on central Queensland’s Fitzroy River with an official site inspection by the sport’s world body just weeks away.<\/p>\n
Brisbane Games boss Andrew Liveris on Thursday took centre stage as he announced the first major corporate sponsor, unveiling the Commonwealth Bank as a founding partner.<\/p>\n
But attention later turned to the Fitzroy River, which has come under scrutiny since it was announced by the state government as the Games rowing venue a year ago.<\/p>\n
The crocodile habitat is known for its strong currents, leading the likes of triple Olympic gold medallist Drew Ginn to suggest competitors could be disadvantaged by their lane placement.<\/p>\n
While the river has hosted major regattas before, including the 2009 Australian Masters, the sport’s governing body is yet to fully endorse the location for Olympic events.<\/p>\n
A World Rowing expert is set to arrive at the Rockhampton venue in the coming weeks to officially assess the river, concluding their investigation by June.<\/p>\n
Olympic Minister Tim Mander on Thursday said there was no Plan B.<\/p>\n
He said there was nothing unusual about World Rowing’s investigation, and the suitability of all venues was being assessed.<\/p>\n
“There’s not one thing that they’ve said that would give us concern with regard to going forward,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We are committed to it, we’re not looking at alternatives. The rowing will be at Rockhampton.”<\/p>\n
Ginn was recently among more than 500 rowers who signed an open letter to the state government asking for the rowing to be held in southeast Queensland.<\/p>\n
An alternative proposal at Moreton Bay, north of Brisbane, is being promoted by the local council as a world standard course at roughly half the cost of Rockhampton’s site.<\/p>\n
Asked if it was irresponsible not to consider an alternative rowing site, Mander said: “There’s no reason to be looking at alternatives when you have the level of confidence that we have.”<\/p>\n
Liveris unveiled the sponsor alongside swimming great Ian Thorpe, champion slalom canoeist Jess Fox, Paralympic wheelchair basketballer Tristan Knowles and sprinter Calab Law in Brisbane.<\/p>\n
Fox said it was not up to athletes to decide when asked if she shared concerns of other rowers regarding the Fitzroy River.<\/p>\n
“I think athletes understand that those decisions lie with the Organising Committee and the governing sporting bodies,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We can put on a great show and I know they’ll be the best conditions wherever we end up.”<\/p>\n
Liveris announced the founding partner alongside Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn, who remained tight lipped about the sponsorship’s dollar value.<\/p>\n
“Under anyone’s definition, it’s a sizeable investment,” Comyn said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A state government is standing by its choice of a crocodile habitat as Brisbane’s Olympic rowing venue as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,111,139,69,5106,213],"class_list":["post-384038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-australia","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-olympics","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}