By Tom Degun

1391947-Looking_South_down_the_Gold_Coast_Gold_Coast_21-07-11July 22 - Thirteen Commonwealth Games voting delegates from the Oceania region have landed in the Gold Coast as part of the second international stream of Commonwealth Games Association (CGA) representatives to inspect the Australian city's bid for the 2018 event.


The Oceania delegates will be joined by two African and two American delegates in their visit of the city, which comes after a large group of African voting delegates visited the city earlier this month.

The delegates will see a host of Gold Coast activities indicative of the "whole of Games" experience available to the athletes and visitors if the bid for the 2018 Commonwealth Games is successful.

Meanwhile, a series of presentations depicting the more serious side to the bid will intersperse the daily venue and experience tours, while providing depth and detail on the various aspects of delivering the Games.

Mark_Stockwell_in_front_of_Queensland_logo"The Gold Coast will be one of only a couple of regional cities to ever bid for the Commonwealth Games so it's crucial that we demonstrate effectively what we can do and set the benchmark for others to follow," said Gold Coast 2018 chairman Mark Stockwell (pictured).

"We believe a Gold Coast staged Commonwealth Games will be a catalyst for other cities in the Commonwealth, of similar size and capacity to look at bidding for the rights to the event - using the Gold Coast model as a blueprint."

The visit is crucial for the Gold Coast's chances of hosting the 2018 Commonwealth Games as the battle with their only rivals Hambantota of Sri Lanka for the right to stage the event.

The vote on where the competition will be held will be made at the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) General Assembly on November 11 this year in St Kitts and Nevis but the Gold Coast can only count on one of the 13 Oceania delegates to vote for them in the form of Australian Commonwealth Games Association president Sam Coffa.

Gold Cost 2018 chief executive Mark Peters said there were no guarantees in the bid race and that the team would need to impress the representatives from the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu during their three-day visit.

"While these are our important friends, we can't take them for granted," he said.

Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Premier on the Gold Coast and Commonwealth Games Peta-Kaye Croft said the Gold Coast 2018 Bid team was looking forward to showcasing the Gold Coast to the second wave of delegates.

"This will be the largest regional group to visit us and we have prepared accordingly and are confident they will have a very positive experience whilst here," said Croft.

"We will be taking them to a [Gold Coast] Titans match so they can see how we manage transport to and from venues and also deliver an event at Skilled Park which is a proposed venue for the rugby sevens competition at the 2018 Games."

Several Gold Coast current and former elite athletes will be assisting the bid team during the presentations and will accompany the group on selected venue visits.

Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Bid, Athlete's Advisory Committee Chair and five time Commonwealth Games gold medallist Andrew Baildon said he had enjoyed the interaction with many of the African delegates and was looking forward to the ensuing visits.

"It is important the delegates understand that we are a city that has produced some of the world's finest athletes and that we provide outstanding opportunities and an environment that is conducive to year round training across a variety of sports," he said.

"As an athlete I speak from experience and can discuss layouts of the proposed Games Village, venues and the 'whole of Games' experience opportunities that await athletes, the Games Family and visitors from around the world."

As per the Commonwealth Games Federation guideline the CGA visitation programme will be no longer than four days and three nights with one day allowed on either side for travel.

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