BIRMINGHAM has this morning launched its Commonwealth Games, heaping attention on Bendigo's plans for 2026.
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Here's where our plans are at:
Bendigo's a host city?
Yep, we sure are.
Melbourne will get the opening ceremony but we are among four hosts.
The other hosts are Ballarat, Geelong and Gippsland.
This all sounds really unusual
It is. The Commonwealth Games Federation had trouble finding a host after South Africa's Durban lost rights to be the 2022 host.
That city missed key deadlines and had a string of financial problems.
Birmingham - which had been planning to host in 2026 - brought its plans forward, leaving a hole we will fill.
A regionally based Games will be different but, hey, necessity is often the mother of invention.
It could become the big sporting event model of the 21st century.
That said, Games organisers have four years to pull off the sort of event that often takes double that.
Is a regional Games controversial?
Only in Western Australia, it appears.
That state's premier, Mark McGowan recently invoked Bendigo in a spat over GST funding.
"The other states need to manage their budgets. I know Victoria, they're fellow travellers and the like, but they just went and spent $2.6 billion on getting the Commonwealth Games to put it in Bendigo," he said in quotes reported by AAP.
He was incorrect. Bendigo will not be the sole host.
Jealous premiers and GST funding aside, people don't seem outraged.
Will we get any sports?
Victoria's government has confirmed a bunch.
Bendigo's getting netball, cycling, T20 cricket, squash, lawn bowls and several weightlifting events.
The city wants more sports, chief executive Craig Niemann has said.
"Shooting, for example, was held in Bendigo during the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, so we'll probably put in a pitch for that," he said.
The council is in talks with neighbours like the Mount Alexander Shire, which recently launched a bid for mountain biking in Harcourt.
Will we build new venues?
It's a bit too early to say.
The City of Greater Bendigo is in intensive discussions with the state government about what we will need.
We are definitely getting an athletes' village, though we don't yet know where.
Organisers have already confirmed they will build athlete villages in host cities, and expect to announce potential locations by the end of the year.
Can we retrofit existing venues?
You appear to have read organisers' minds.
It is not a great leap to suggest some might need work.
The government has confirmed Bendigo Bowls Club is going to host events, which is a fantastic facility but currently lacks stands for the crowds likely to come.
But there is a huge, empty space next door that used to house 16 tennis courts.
It's hard to imagine some venues needing extreme makeovers.
Red Energy Arena (formerly known as the Bendigo Stadium) is already big enough to host netball, one would assume.
Still, Bendigo will feel the pressure to show off a modern, cutting edge, sustainably designed city.
"The whole point is that we are preparing for a competition laden with international prestige," La Trobe University planning expert Kiran Shinde has warned.
There's also some big questions around training hubs and security that regional venues don't typically have to consider.
And post-Games?
History is littered with Olympics and Commonwealth Games builds that found new life once athletes left - plus a heap that didn't.
Some Bendigo councillors hope the Games will help solve long-term problems around public transport and slower-than-ideal internet speeds.
They also want to upgrade venues that normally have nothing to do with sport, like the Bendigo Art Gallery.
Bendigo's council this week approved an entire planning process for the gallery's renovation based on a possibility it could become the 2026 Games' cultural hub.
And the council expects more builds that could help deal with other matters unconnected to sport.
The Victorian government expects Bendigo's athletes' village to help ease the city's crippling housing crisis, once athletes depart.
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