for Games

Press, 31 January 1984, Page 20

for Games

scotch the notion that his council was just trying to cash in on the America’s Cup euphoria. “We were thinking of this long before the America’s Cup,” he said.

. The last time Perth held the Games was in 1962, but most of the venues built for that effort are still there and have been kept up to standard. The athletics track has just been improved at a cost of sAustl million ($1.4 million) by the same company that laid the track for the Moscow Olympics. The cycling track Mr Michael believes is almost up to the standard of that in Brisbane, and the swimming centre he asserts is the best in the Southern Hemisphere. In fact it is the presence of the venues for the Games and the fact that Perth already has 15,000 first-class hotel beds available for tourists, not counting cheaper hotels and motels, as well as accommodation for 3000 athletes that Mr Michael believes will count in Perth’s favour.

Taking into account the substantial income expected from news media rights and sponsorship, not only does Mr Michael expect his ratepayers not to have to put

their hands into their pockets but he expects a healthy profit from the Games. He said he sat down and “simply did a few sums” before convincing himself that Perth had a good case for the Games. “I am a businessman and it did not take much to see that this is a good proposition,” he said. Asked what chance he thought Perth had of getting the Games, he said, “What chance has Auckland got?” ' He rejected the notion that Perth was positioning itself to cash in on the expected political backlash from African nations if the All Blacks tour South Africa next year, saying he did not know such a tour was planned. With typical Western Australian independence, he said that Perth’s position on the Indian Ocean seaboard was another good reason why his city should get the Games. “I would believe that as the crow flies we would be almost as close to New Zealand as we are to Brisbane, and we are a whole lot closer to Africa and some of the poorer nations, which will make it cheaper for them to come,” he said.