Too hot to trot (bat, bowl or smash)?
Prompted by the upward-racing mercury in Melbourne, which has turned proud defending Australian Open tennis champions into heat-stricken quitters, The Times of London has mischievously questioned whether Australia should be allowed to host major international sporting events. With its leader writers clearly limbering up for the northern summer with a spot of pre-Ashes Aussie-baiting, the paper notes: "Sooner or later you have to face up to the only sensible conclusion: Australia is no place to host international sporting tournaments; except maybe the world kangaroo long-jump."
The truth is that it has been a strong few months for Aussie-hosted sporting events, with the attracting recording crowds in South Australia, the Australian Youth Olympics Festival in Sydney attracting record number of young competitors, and the most riveting of Test series between the hosts and South Africa.
In recent weeks, the Melbourne Age suggested that the Victorian capital was , although John Coates, the Aussie Olympics supremo, quickly shot down that trial balloon and said that Brisbane was the next in the queue.
But is Australia aiming for one global sporting event too far, with its bid to host the 2018 World Cup? The Rudd government has pledged $A45.6 million to the Football Federation Australia to help finance its lobbying campaign.
The FFA believes it presents a compelling case. It says that if Fifa is serious about promoting the game in the Asia-Pacific region, then Australia would be an ideal venue. It already has an infrastructure of world-class stadia, along with the organisational expertise that brought you the Sydney summer games, the superlative Olympics. It also harbours a polyglot population, drawn from all corners of the planet who would be sure to greet the tournament with great enthusiasm.
The nay-sayers raise the time difference problem, with kick-off times that won't work too well for European television viewers, and the tyranny of distance for travelling fans.
Then there's football's geo-politics, which make even the machinations of Chicago look like the Little House on the Prairie.
With the southern hemisphere poised to host the next two tournaments - South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014 - the Fifa President Sepp Blater has suggested it go for 2022 instead. The President of the FFA, Frank Lowy, who would be 92 by then, said Australia would stick with 2018. England is aiming for 2018, while Portugal and Spain looks set to launch a combined bid. The Aussies hope that Uefa, soccer's most powerful voting bloc, will be split, and it will sneak up at the back post in the final minute and nod in the winner. But tackling its Asian rivals, China and Japan which seem set to mount bids, is likely to be an even tougher challenge.
Some wonder why the Rudd government is prepared to spend over $A40 million at a time when the federal budget is almost certain to head in deficit, when the odds are stacked so heavily against Australia.
As for the heat argument, I'll leave that to the leader writers at The Australian, who have risen to the challenge from their Murdoch-owned sister paper in London. If heat were such a problem, they observe, then why did the great British hope Andy Murray make an unexpectedly early departure, which was blamed partly on a cold?
I'm 
Comments
or to comment.