One of the most captivating highlights of the Olympic Games is undoubtedly the venues that host the various sporting events. These arenas provide athletes with a stage to showcase their exceptional skills, and their names, like the athletes who have left their glorious marks within them, shine brightly throughout history. In particular, the main stadium for athletics, the flagship event of the Olympics, often defines the historical legacy of an entire Games through its architectural style and scale.
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03-31, 2025Brisbane's The Gabba stadium will not be among the honored ranks of main Olympic stadiums. Instead, a brand-new, 63,000-capacity venue will rise in Victoria Park. This will be the first newly constructed main Olympic stadium since the 2012 London Olympics (although the main stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics involved a complete reconstruction of an existing stadium, which is slightly different).
Many unknowns still surround this new stadium, including its cost (preliminary estimates are at AUD 3.785 billion) and design plans. But based on the information we currently have, how will it compare to previous main stadiums?
With a proposed capacity of 63,000, the Victoria Park stadium will become Australia's third-largest stadium, trailing only the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG, 100,024) and Stadium Australia in Sydney (82,000). During the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Stadium Australia could accommodate 110,000 people (although 114,714 people watched the closing ceremony), making it the largest Olympic stadium ever. During the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the MCG had a capacity of 103,000, making it the third-largest Olympic stadium after Sydney and the Berlin Olympic Stadium (110,000). In comparison, the proposed Victoria Park stadium seems relatively small.
In a sense, the Victoria Park stadium's relatively modest size would make it the smallest main Olympic stadium since the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, when the Amsterdam Olympic Stadium held only 31,600 people. But in reality, this capacity aligns with the target capacity of many Olympic stadiums. Brisbane does not need a larger stadium, as over-expanding capacity could render the stadium a gaudy display piece. After all, Brisbane is the least populous city to host a Summer Olympics since the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. The proposed capacity of 63,000 was not a random decision. A report by the Government Infrastructure and Investment Coordination Agency (GIICA) noted that Queensland has the lowest number of major stadium seats per capita among the five most populous states, with only one seat per 60 people, compared to an average of one seat per 36 people in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia.
The new aquatic center, proposed for the site of the Centenary Pool, will be grand in scale. With a proposed Olympic capacity of 25,000 (permanent seating will be reduced to 8,800), the venue will be the third-largest ever to host swimming competitions. This is fitting for Australia, a nation that highly praises its swimmers, perhaps second only to the United States. In Paris, the swimming venue is the second-largest venue with 15,220 seats, aligning with Paris's commitment to reusing existing venues, located within the renovated Paris La Défense Arena. After the Olympics, it will revert to its normal use as the home of the Top 14 rugby club Racing 92.
Los Angeles will also invest heavily in its swimming venue, but on a larger scale, using SoFi Stadium, home to Los Angeles' two NFL teams, the Chargers and the Rams, to create the largest dedicated swimming venue in Olympic history, with a capacity of 38,000. Incidentally, it is not the largest swimming venue ever – the 100-meter-long pool at the 1908 London Olympics was located within White City Stadium, which could hold 93,000 people. The new National Aquatic Centre will be an iconic venue for the future development of Australian swimming. Swimming Australia CEO Rob Woodhouse called it "the most significant investment in Australian aquatics ever," with the potential to lay the foundation for the sport's "continued success for the next 50 years." But the statement may also be reflected in its design.
Beijing's Water Cube is one of the most stunning and unique sports buildings in the world. The London Aquatics Centre and its undulating roof, a design vision of Zaha Hadid, remains a focal point of the entire Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Whoever is ultimately chosen to design the final product has a daunting task ahead of them.
One might think that the Olympics typically spend huge sums of money building brand-new stadiums, but this is a common occurrence. But the overall trend is to utilize existing venues. For example, last year's main venue for the Paris Olympics is actually older than Brisbane's Lang Park redevelopment project, namely the Stade de France, built in 1998. The 2021 Olympics were held at the same location as the 1964 Olympics, but the Tokyo National Stadium was completely rebuilt on the site of the old National Stadium at a cost of 157 billion yen (US$1.6 billion). The Rio Olympics also utilized a rebuilt existing stadium, the historic Maracanã Stadium, for the opening and closing ceremonies, while the athletics competitions were held at the smaller Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos, which was also an existing stadium. The Los Angeles Olympics will make history by using the same stadium for the third time – the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was also the main stadium for the 1932 and 1984 Games.
Prior to this, from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics to the 1948 London Olympics, 10 of the previous 12 Games used existing venues. The only exceptions were the 1970s Munich and Montreal Olympics – both of which were architectural marvels, although they left behind very different legacies. It took Montreal 30 years to pay off the debt for its revolutionary stadium, earning it the nickname "the Big Owe" and solidifying Montreal's image as a representation of Olympic excess and frivolity – its total cost overrun was estimated to be more than 700% over budget. That Olympics presented many problems for the organizers.
Many African countries boycotted the Olympics after the IOC refused to ban New Zealand from competing after the All Blacks continued to tour South Africa that year in defiance of the apartheid ban, and Canada became the first and only country in history to fail to win a gold medal at its home Olympics, winning only 11 medals in total. Given Australia's brilliant record in swimming and other Olympic events, it is believed that we can safely assume that Australia will not have a problem with a lack of gold medal success at the Brisbane Olympics, especially in swimming.
