Crikey! Australia’s 2032 Olympic organizers want rowers to compete in a crocodile-infested river
· Yahoo Sports
Organizers of the 2032 Summer Games in Brisbane, Australia, say they’re sticking with plans to hold Olympic rowing and sprint canoeing events in a river hundreds of miles north that’s home to deadly crocodiles known as “salties.”
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“We are committed to it, we’re not looking at alternatives. The rowing will be at Rockhampton,” the Queensland state Olympic minister, Tim Mander, told reporters recently. “There’s no reason to be looking at alternatives when you have the level of confidence that we have.”
But there’s new scrutiny on using the Fitzroy River as a competition venue, first proposed a year ago. Last month, some 500 rowers signed an open letter that demanded “a rethink,” The Independent, a British newspaper, reported.
Their concerns, which include investing in a venue so far from the region’s population center as well as conditions, come as the international sports federation World Rowing is set to assess the river with a decision on its suitability for competition expected mid-year, the newspaper said.
The danger posed by the river’s saltwater crocodiles has been downplayed by many Australians, although the country’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said before the venue location was made official last year that it probably should be someplace else, according to The Guardian.
Albanese told a radio station then that the Fitzroy was a “great river” for a walk, “but I’m not sure that having rowing there, although I’ve got to say, people might break world records. ... They’d want to go pretty quickly wouldn’t they?”
Defenders of “the mighty Fitzroy,” including Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, have responded to concerns about the crocodiles by saying that if the river is good enough for local kids, it is "good enough for Pierre from Paris,” a story in The Guardian last week said.
That story pointed out the river is at the southern limits of “croc country” and that locals regularly paddle upstream from a concrete barrier that marks where crocodiles larger than 6½-feet long and those “displaying dangerous behavior” can begin to be removed.
Earlier this year, drone footage appeared to confirm a crocodile in the Fitzroy River had snatched a 16-month-old Rottweiler puppy named Nigel from the front yard of a home in nearby Port Curtis, Yahoo News reported.
There have been no officially recorded crocodile attacks on humans in the river, according to The Guardian, but Queensland authorities have recorded four sightings in the area since the start of the year and have posted reminders near the river to be “Crocwise”.
The government’s tips for boaters in crocodile habitat areas include keeping arms and legs away from the water, treating a boat or trailer as a barrier when launching or loading, and avoiding kayaks or other small craft because “crocodiles have taken people from small vessels.”