Swimming Australia has been chosen as the hosts of the 2014 Pan Pacific Championships, they announced in a press release today.
The move is not a huge surprise, given that each of the other four charter nations (Japan, Canada, and the USA in 2010) have hosted the last three games, making this year Australia’s turn in the rotation. This will be the first time they’ve hosted since the event was held in Sydney in 1999.
The Northeastern state of Queensland were the winners of the bid, which would imply Brisbane or the Gold Coast as the probable locale for one of the biggest non-Olympic/World Championship meets on the quadrennial schedule.
It has been 25 years since the Pan Pacific Championships were last staged in Queensland. The 2014 event is a great opportunity to showcase the State to a national and international audience,” said Queensland Minister of Tourism Jann Stuckey.
This will be an important event in the leadup to the 2018 Commonwealth Games that will also be hosted in Queensland.
This four-year rotation is a deviation from the meet’s original charter, where the meet would head to Japan every other year, while the opposite event would move between the other three host nations. This will be the meet’s 12th edition, and for most involved countries the meet is used for a good mid-point test in the Olympic cycle, to identify contenders for the next Olympic meet, and to generate some good buzz for their programs.
The meet was originally intended for countries that bordered the Pacific Ocean (hence the name), but has since been expanded to allow other non-European countries to join. New Zealand and Brazil are among the other common participants.
Despite Sydney having the fondest memories as the host of so many of Australia’s biggest meets, 60% of their Olympic swimmers hail from the warmer Brisbane state.