An act of God cancelled rowing at the first Olympics of the modern age.
But since stormy seas off Athens scuppered the sport in 1896, rowing has featured in every Games since.
Now, the deputy premier of an Australian state appears to have threatened to upend what would be 136 years of history by scrapping rowing from the 2032 Brisbane Games – unless international Olympic and rowing officials agree to race on a river some have expressed concerns may not be up to standard, and one which is within the natural habitat of one of the most deadly predators on Earth: the saltwater crocodile.
The Queensland infrastructure and planning minister, Jarrod Bleijie, raised the stakes on his government’s bid to have the central Queensland city of Rockhampton host rowing in 2032 on Wednesday, sending a message to the International Olympic Committee that there was no option other than the “mighty Fitzroy River”.
“Rowing is gonna be in Rocky,” Bleijie said. “If they don’t want it in Rocky – it ain’t happening. That’s a big call for the IOC.”
World Rowing and the IOC have yet to deem the Fitzroy fit to host the best rowers on Earth since the Liberal National party government unveiled its plan to spread the Games across Australia’s second biggest, and most decentralised, state last March.
Even before the decision to host rowing more than 600km north of Brisbane in the country’s “beef capital” was made official, the option was derided by the likes of Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who said the Fitzroy – given it was habitat for saltwater crocodiles – was not a “sensible” proposition.
But it is not necessarily “salties” that have caused the most consternation among the rowing community. Rowers and canoers daily paddle the river above the barrage that divides the Fitzroy between its salt and freshwater reaches – and marks the point from which park rangers are tasked with removing “all large crocodiles”.
Instead, World Rowing and Rowing Australia – which has used the river as an Olympic training venue – have issued statements that the Fitzroy has not been assessed to see that it meets the strict technical requirements for international racing concerning conditions such as weeds, water quality and currents.
World Rowing is making those assessments and declined to comment.
The Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee also declined to comment, while Rowing Australia said it would await “the outcome of the technical assessment of Rockhampton” before doing so.
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Immediately after throwing down the gauntlet to the IOC this week, however, Bleijie denied that meant the LNP was going to cancel rowing.
The deputy premier told reporters in Mango Hill on the northern outskirts of Brisbane that, simply, the Queensland government had decided that “rowing will be in Rocky” – and that the IOC would not have the final say on the matter.
Bleijie doubled down on those comments the next day. Speaking to the national broadcaster on Thursday, the deputy premier was asked by ABC Brisbane radio host Steve Austin if his government had “the legal power” to tell the IOC that “you can’t have rowing if it is not in Rockhampton”.
“I think we have,” Bleijie said. “Because we are spending $7.1bn of Queensland and Australian taxpayers’ money.”
A University of Sydney sports studies senior lecturer, Steve Georgakis, told Guardian Australia that the correct answer to that question was no.
“The Olympics do not work like that,” Georgakis said. “This is a bit of bravado.”
Even if Queensland could cancel rowing, there is no way the state would do so to an event whose special status in the pantheon of Australian sport predates the modern Olympics itself – with roots stretching back at least to 1876 when Edward “Ned” Trickett became the first of his countrymen recognised as a world champion in any sport.
“Rowing is central to our gold medal pursuit, so of course it is going to be in the Olympics,” Georgakis said.
Instead Georgakis said he suspected Bleijie had come out “guns blazing”, in part, as a piece of “internal politicking” designed to “reassure Rockhampton that he is 100% behind them”.
But, also, he said this was the kind of brinkmanship that regularly played out between the IOC and its Olympic hosts. A similar scenario, he said, occurred before the 2004 Athens Games, with concerns surrounding the Schinias rowing centre aired right up to the eve of the event.
The result of that international pressure, he said, was that the Greek hosts ended up investing a lot more in that rowing facility than they might have otherwise.
“The IOC expects they will have the very, very best facilities,” he said. “And, when they don’t think they are the very best, they’ll start to threaten the organisers by sending out messages that: ‘If you don’t get this together, we don’t care, we’ll just pick it up and take it elsewhere.’
“That is clearly what is happening here. They are flexing a bit of muscle.”
The IOC could, in theory, opt to take the event to Penrith, Georgakis said, where an international regatta centre was built for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Meanwhile, other Queensland regions continue to seek to pinch rowing from Rockhampton – on Thursday the Moreton Bay mayor made an official bid to do so with a proposed venue just north of Brisbane.
But Georgakis said history indicated those efforts would be in vain, that the Brisbane Olympic organisers would do what they must to appease the IOC – and that rowing would take place in Rocky.
“These are just the Olympic Games’ politicking that goes on,” he said.
