Stars to compete on Gold Coast

Press, 23 September 1987, Page 80

Stars to compete on Gold Coast

NZPA-AAP Brisbane / Ivan Lendl, Boris Becker, Bernhard /Langer, Nick Faldo and possibly the marathon man, Robert de Castella, will take part in the biggest sporting spectacular ever staged in Australia on the Gold Coast next January. The millionaire developer, Mike Gore, host of the unique five-day sports and entertainment extravaganza at his ,$156 million luxury Hope Island resort village, Sanctuary Cove, said the ageing American crooner, Frank Sinatra, would perform at the closing party. The 71-year-old Sinatra — who stormed out of the country in 1974 vowing never to return — will perform to an estimated audience of 50,000 on a specially constructed stage erected around the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth greens of the resort’s magnificent golf course. The sporting highlights of the January 5-10 programme include a sixman tennis challenge, a $400,000 golf tournament, a $200,000 half-marathon, Australia’s richest bowls event, a power boat race and a game fishing competition held off the Gold Coast. Mr Gore and joint resort developer, Ariadne Australia, have hired Bob Barnard — the man behind two highly successful Adelaide Grands Prix — to promote Sanctuary Cove to the world. The Adelaide-based Barnard, who helped the Brisbane Bears break into the V.F.L™, confirmed the recent U.S. Open winner, Lendl (1), Becker (4), Sweden’s Joakim Nystrom (14) and Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Zivojinovic — ranked ninteenth on the world money list this season — as certain challenge starters. Approaches were made to Australia’s Wimbledon champion, Pat Cash, and Sweden’s Mats Wilander, but both are committed Another feature of the five-day sports show will be the head-to-head clash of six of Australia’s best lawn bowlers, headed by Rob Parella, against six overseas champions led by New Zealand’s world champion, Peter Beiliss.