Can crocodiles and canoeists coexist at Australia’s 2032 Olympic Games?

Andrew Miller likes to joke with visitors about the Fitzroy River’s crocodiles, but promises they are unlikely to encounter one. The river is set to host rowing and canoeing events at Queensland’s 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Photograph: Sylvia Liber/The Guardian

Andrew Miller is only minutes into a crash course on how to use a V8 ocean ski when he first drops the C-bomb. The former red beret paratrooper and current president of a Rockhampton canoe club is explaining to a first-time paddler why he won’t begin on a K1 – the kind of craft the world’s best canoe sprinters will paddle when and if they come here to central Queensland to compete at the 2032 Olympic Games.

“It’s like sitting on a pencil,” Miller says. “If a crocodile so much as tapped your hull, you’d be straight into the drink!”