Sport is part of the cultural identity of many Australians.

In Australia, sports and recreational organisations attract more volunteers than any other type of organisation.

Major sporting events – grand finals, international cricket, grand slam tournaments, surfing competitions and cycling challenges – as well as less watched events – weekend matches, morning and afternoon training sessions and amateur competitions – fill calendars and recreational time.

Sport isn’t just a favoured pastime for Australians. It is a significant contributor to the Australian economy.

The 2032 Olympics will catapult south-east Queensland onto the world stage, but there’s a long way to go before the region will be ready to meet the demands of hosting the Games.

The 2032 Olympic master plan includes three main hubs in the state’s south-east corner, which will host 28 sports split across them.
There will be 21 venues in Brisbane, seven on the Gold Coast and four on the Sunshine Coast. Football preliminary matches will also be played in Cairns, Townsville, Toowoomba, Sydney and Melbourne.

To date, the emphasis has been on investing in facilities that already exist to make them more accessible to their immediate precincts (through pedestrian mobility/walkability) and to the region as a whole (via high-speed rail and light rail).

Implicit in this is the recognition that while Queensland can provide individual facilities and locales of value, it struggles to create well-connected, accessible precincts that successfully combine multiple activities and multiple mobilities.

Major facilities such as the Brisbane Cricket Ground (Gabba), Suncorp Stadium, Victoria Park and Raymond Park – all of which will be important venues in 2032 – remain uncomfortable for pedestrians to access, despite being so near to the CBD and South Bank.

The urban challenge for South East Queensland now is to go beyond a “city of bits” to manifest liveable subtropical urbanity, integrated from the pedestrian to the regional scale and memorable for its journeys.

Former Olympic cities demonstrate that to achieve change at this scale, not only do new forms of urbanity need to be imagined from the start, but new ways of working are necessary to bring them into being. It is this expanded capacity to deliver, by urban professionals and authorities, that enables the creation of great new places, and in turn fosters a new and shared sense of urban appreciation.

With a wide variety of jobs and career pathways available, the sport and recreation sector can be a fun, challenging and fulfilling environment to work and progress your career.

Developing athletes, planning and managing facilities, delivering sport participation programs and instructing outdoor adventure activities are just a few examples of the different jobs and careers within sport and recreation.

Short-course qualifications in coaching, officiating, camp instructing and pool lifeguarding are examples of ideal ways to start in sector through new qualifications and experience in volunteering and paid employment opportunities.

The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) has developed a framework to capture the different pathways in sport and address the current shortfalls in applied research and practice specific to athlete development. It's called FTEM.

The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) works closely with categorised National Sporting Organisations (NSOs) to develop custom programs, camp experiences and online learning opportunities that support athletes and teams to reach their full potential.

World class physiology and biomechanics laboratories. State-of-the-art strength and conditioning gymnasium, haematology laboratory, 50m testing and training swimming pool and dedicated recovery centre. All facilities contain quality assured high-performance sports science and sports medicine equipment that are calibrated to high performance specifications.

A specialised multi-disciplinary team of sport scientists and practitioners to support NSO elite, pre-elite and development athletes including intensive rehabilitation and altitude house camps. Services can incorporate a range of elements from nutrition, food services to strength and conditioning, and biomechanics.

The world of sports won’t escape this trend and actually is already integrating robotics. Whether you are a trainer, a player, a club, fan, viewer, stadium owner or groundsman, you too will be affected by present and future robots (most of them equipped with AI).

Most robots in sports currently assist or help humans practice rather than replace them. The robots performing actual sporting activities are for now showcased examples, proof of concepts, part of researches

Community sport infrastructure is a key driver of economic, health and social benefits.

Positive outcomes occur though participation in recreation based activities, but sport infrastructure amplifies outcomes, with volunteers and officials, team members and social supporters.

Community sport infrastructure provides a gathering place for a broad range of events, celebrations and meetings, supports greater amenity within communities, enhances connectedness and community pride, and provides safe spaces for response to disaster and security threats.

Sports tourism refers to the act of traveling specially for the purpose of enjoying sports in one way or another.

Sports tourism constitutes a large part of the tourism industry, with sources claiming that a quarter of all tourism in the world is sports-related. Sports tourism includes not only participation in and attending sporting events, but also personal recreational activities.

“Tourism and sport are interrelated and complementary… both are powerful forces for development, stimulating investment in infrastructure projects such as airports, roads, stadiums, sporting complexes and restaurants- projects that can be enjoyed by the local population as well as tourists who come to use them.”