The Living Legacy Being Delivered By Sydney’s Games Build

“Build it, and they will come” may be the catchphrase from a famous Hollywood baseball movie, but it has proven to be 100 per cent accurate for the stadium Sydney built for the 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In a taste of the exciting future that lies ahead for Brisbane with the Victoria Park precinct, which will be home to the new Brisbane Stadium and National Aquatic Centre, Sydney’s Stadium Australia and Olympic Park precinct have become an epicentre for sport and entertainment with more than 3.5 million visitors every year.

As we mark the 25th Anniversary of the Sydney Olympics, it’s well worth revisiting the incredible infrastructure build that capitalised on the impetus of the Games for one of the largest remediation projects ever undertaken in Australia, creating a legacy of sporting and recreational infrastructure for the next century and beyond. 

Stadium Australia, which saw a capacity crowd of 114,714 for the Sydney Olympics Closing Ceremony, has hosted everything from Rugby and FIFA Women’s World Cup finals, NRL and NRLW Grand Finals and State Of Origins, to Motorcycle Speedway World Championships and even a Monster Truck Race Of Champions.

Major concerts at the stadium started with the Bee Gees back in 1999 who played to a sellout crowd of 66,285 and have since included blockbuster artists such as Taylor Swift, P!nk, Coldplay, The Foo Fighters, Metallica, KISS, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns N’ Roses and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. 

The stadium now forms the centrepiece for a wider park that revitalised a disused and unwanted part of Sydney and which now features a host of international-standard indoor and outdoor sports and entertainment facilities.

These facilities include: 

• Sydney Showground Stadium – Part of the precinct that hosts Sydney's Royal Easter Show. This Stadium is also home to the GWS Giants AFL team and Sydney Thunder Big Bash cricket team (Capacity 24,000). 
• Sydney SuperDome – Multipurpose arena that hosts a range of sports and events including Netball World Cups, NBL basketball, ATP Masters Cup tennis tournaments, UFC and concerts for artists including Billie Eilish and Justin Timberlake (Capacity: Concerts 21,000, Court sports 18,200, Gymnastics 15,000) 
• Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre – Used as the warm-up track during the 2000 Games, it is now a multi-use stadium that regularly hosts Australian Track and Field Championships through to community athletics (Capacity: Grandstand 5,000; Grass 10,000) 
• Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre – The pool that played host to the exploits of Ian Thorpe and Susie O’Neill among a squad of golden talent during the 2000 Games continues to be used as a competition and training base for swimming, diving, water polo and synchronised swimming (Capacity: 10,000) 
• Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre – Now home to Ken Rosewall Arena as its centre court, the Tennis Centre hosts the annual ATP Cup internal tournament, as well as being home to Super Netball clubs the NSW Swifts and Giants Netball (Capacity: 10,000) 
• Sydney Olympic Park Hockey Centre (Capacity: 8,000) 
• Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre Multi-use halls (capacity: 5,000) 
• Sydney International Archery Park (capacity: 4,500) 

In addition to sports and entertainment facilities, Sydney Olympic Park also contains commercial developments, residential buildings and extensive parklands, breathing life into an area of western Sydney that was largely uninhabited prior to redevelopment. In the 2011 census, the area’s population was just 65 people but by 2021 that number had surged almost 5,000 residents.

The revamp of the area also came with vastly improved public transport options headlined by the Olympic Park railway line and Olympic Park station, as well as regular ferry services to the nearby Sydney Olympic Park ferry wharf.

The living legacy of the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games shows what Brisbane can achieve as we build for 2032.