The Pan Pacific Masters Games will be trialed as an annual eventon the Gold Coast after being a biennial event since 1998, the city’s mayor has announced.
The 10-day event got underway on Friday for the first time since 2018 due to COVID-19, with 13,000 competitors registered across 42 sports.
The trial is in place until 2024.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate made the announcement to the athletes at the opening night celebrations at the Games Village alongside the beach at Kurrawa.
“Pan Pacific will be here every year,” he said.
“Sport really excites and unites. On the Gold Coast, we are exciting and uniting.
“It’s what the Gold Coast is about: events, excitement and we’re moving ahead.”
The Pan Pacific Masters Games have been held on the Gold Coast since 1998. (ABC News: Kirsten Webster)
The Pan Pacific Masters Games will be trialled as an annual eventon the Gold Coast after being a biennial event since 1998, the city’s mayor has announced.
The 10-day event got underway on Friday for the first time since 2018 due to COVID-19, with 13,000 competitors registered across 42 sports.
The trial is in place until 2024.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate made the announcement to the athletes at the opening night celebrations at the Games Village alongside the beach at Kurrawa.
“Pan Pacific will be here every year,” he said.
“Sport really excites and unites. On the Gold Coast, we are exciting and uniting.
“It’s what the Gold Coast is about: events, excitement and we’re moving ahead.”
There are 42 sports in this year’s Pan Pacific Masters Games. (Supplied: Pan Pacific Masters Games )
Event chief executive Cam Hart said the organisation had been working towards increasing the frequency of the games.
“We’ve got some work to do,” Mr Hart said.
“We think it’s actually going to be more sustainable going annually instead of having one big one every two years.
“We envisage, going annually, each event will be a little bit smaller but over the two-year cycle its going to deliver significantly more benefits to the Gold Coast.”
Economic boost
The event has an estimated $20 million economic impact on the city, with a $1 million injection to grassroots sports on the Coast.
Competitor numbers are down compared to the last time the event was held.
“In 2018, the last edition, we had 16,000 participants, a lot of internationals and a lot from interstate,” Mr Hart said.
“We’re at 13,000 this year, so we’re down slightly, but given where we were and what’s happened to everyone over the past two years, it’s big. It’s the second biggest games we’ve ever had.”
Travelling competitors
While some competitors said they would not travel to compete every year, others are already putting the next dates in their diaries.
“This is fantastic. Now we’ve got to start booking our accommodation for next year already,” football player Mhairi Glover said.
“We’ve just travelled from Western Australia.
“We’ve been coming since the 90s, we just love it.”
Prisculla Ipu has been travelling from Papua New Guinea to compete in netball on the Gold Coast since 2010.
“Our last games was in 2018. We thought we’d come back and just have fun,” Ms Ipu said.
“It’s good team networking and good exposure for us.
“We go out on the social events. We’ve met up with some of our community as well, the Papua New Guineans.”
Ms Ipu said her netball team usually found a competition to travel to every year, so would welcome an annual Pan Pacific event.
“I don’t think it’d be a change for us, just the venue,” she said.
For Canadian Joy Hansen and her softball team, the competition is the start of a month-long Australian holiday.
“It was a long trip but we’ve been waiting to go somewhere since 2017,” she said.
“There are about 11 of us that are staying on and travelling around. Some don’t leave Australia until November 26.”
Mr Hart said the format was still in discussion, but that the sporting events may be rotated each year.
“There’s also an option to infusing new sports into the games or alternating new sports from games to games,” he said.
