Chamier said he is confident these Games will have a similar effect on the Gold Coast as that of the 1982 Games on Brisbane.

"That was a great success because it really helped transform the city of Brisbane and six years later we had Expo '88," he told insidethegames here. 

"Those two events are generally regarded by most of us as catapulting Brisbane that far ahead and I believe that the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games will change this city forever."

As well as "uniting the people", Chamier claimed the event "will provide opportunities to diversify the traditional economic base of the Coast, which has been all about tourism and construction, into health and knowledge".

Developments such as the Gold Coast University Hospital, completed last year on the Parklands precinct, due to be home of the Games Village in 2018, as well as the under construction private hospital, the new light rail service, opened on July 20, and the Gold Coast Aquatics Centre will, according to Chamier, "help change the economic base of the Gold Coast which will make it less prone to peaks and troughs in the future".

The new light rail service is one of few tangible legacies already evident in Gold Coast ahead of the 2018 Commonwealth Games ©ITG



All these facilities will leave a long lasting legacy within the Gold Coast, Chamier insisted, with this legacy already evident through the newly renovated Aquatics Centre.

The AUD$41 million ($36 million/£22.5 million/€29 million) redevelopment of this facility, which will be home of the swimming and diving in 2018, was brought forward from 2017 to 2014 in order to accommodate this year's Pan Pacific Swimming Championships.

Chamier was talking during the Glasgow 2014 Debrief here, where organisers of this year's Games are sharing their knowledge and experience of hosting a major sporting event.

This transfer of knowledge system is "extremely important" for Gold Coast 2018 as the "last chance we've got to learn from someone that's been there before us".

After Glasgow "set the bar extremely high" in terms of Commonwealth Games hosting, Chamier admitted that it would be "very hard to find anything we can improve on", however, insisted that Gold Coast organisers were "very comfortable with where we're at and really appreciate the learning process," gained at the Debrief.

He added: "I think the Gold Coast is a very different city to Glasgow.

"We're a very young city and this will help create a new image, and identify an image as a fun-loving, sports orientated, event focused city, which has always been famous for tourism.

"So the opportunity for a billion plus audience around the world, watching and looking at what we have to offer is extremely important."

In keeping with this "fun-loving, sports orientated, event focused" city culture, Chaimer said that he would "love to see surf life saving and beach volleyball and all of those sorts of things which are so typically Australian and more particularly Gold Coast" incorporated in the Games.

This stage of planning has not yet been reached, however.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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