Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Los Angeles: Anna Meares is sipping a cappuccino at a trendy bakery just off the famed Sunset Boulevard.
During the hustle and bustle of the 2024 Olympics, in her role as Australia’s chef de mission – effectively the boss of the country’s Olympians – Meares estimates she got through three or four cups a day.
She also considered five hours of sleep a solid night’s rest.
“I learned that I can function with minimal sleep, thanks to my kids,” Meares says.
We are both a few minutes late for our scheduled catch-up on a warm summer day under blue skies. My Uber took 25 minutes to arrive. Meares was also held up by LA’s notorious traffic.
Not that it matters today. But it will in 2028 when the world comes to town.
“Transport is a big challenge for the organising committee. It’s a big car culture in LA, but we do believe there will be an Olympic lane,” Meares says. “Traffic is traffic and accidents happen.”
This is a vastly different pace to those 19 days in Paris – including events held before the opening ceremony – when Australia enjoyed its most successful Olympics, claiming 18 gold, 19 silver and 16 bronze (53) to finish fourth on the medal tally behind the United States (126), China (91) and Japan (45).
Meares is here because she did such a good job in Paris, according to the powers that be at the Australian Olympic Committee, prompting the four-time Olympian to be reinstated for the role ahead of LA2028.
In 698 days, Meares won’t be cruising around LA cafes. She’ll be zigzagging across America’s second-most populous city, watching Australia’s Olympians compete while keeping the house in order.
Not that she is taking it easy on this trip. Later on this day, Meares will show Australia’s swimmers around the UCLA campus, which will house the main Olympic village. The training facilities available to athletes at the village are world-class.
Meares has spent the past few days immersed in the Dolphins’ inner sanctum at the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine. She has attended not only finals, watching potential stars of 2028 battle the best swimmers from the USA, Canada and China, but also the heats. Even the most ardent swimming fan would concede those aren’t always riveting.
Meares has been there next to Dolphins head coach Rohan Taylor, flicking her hand above her head and urging swimmers to the wall, like a punter riding home a horse at the races.
A meticulous planner as a cyclist, Meares is on her second reconnaissance trip to LA this year.
The LA Games will be the Olympics on steroids. Bad expression, I concede, which still elicits a laugh.
“America knows how to do big,” Meares says. “They know how to do sport. There’s not a lot that keeps me up at night at the moment. But this is big.
“I feel like this will just encapsulate sports fans like never before, which is great for us on the runway to Brisbane 2032. I don’t think there will be any empty seats.”
LA, the world’s celebrity capital, is expected to embrace its rich and famous accordingly, which will make the Games unlike any other. Snoop Dogg was a breakout star of NBC’s coverage in Paris. It will be a VIP Olympics.
Swimming will be held in front of more than 40,000 people at SoFi Stadium, while athletics will be staged at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the same venue for the 1932 and 1984 Olympics. Few corners of the sprawling city will be untouched by these Games.
And that sprawl presents one of Meares’ greatest challenges.
With venues spread, a significant portion of Australia’s team won’t stay in the main village. About a third will be based around Long Beach, roughly an hour from UCLA “in good traffic”.
“We feel that’s too far,” Meares says. “Our challenge with the scope, scale, and spread is how do we take the Olympic experience to those sports that are going to be removed from that village environment?”
In their first Olympic appearance, Australia’s cricketers (T20 format) will stay at a hotel backing onto the Fairgrounds Cricket Stadium at Pomona, about 50 kilometres east of downtown LA. Meares says the cricketers have indicated they want to make the trek to the village for a visit.
You can already picture Ellyse Perry bumping into American gymnastics superstar Simone Biles for a chat. That’s the beauty of the Olympics.
One of the more controversial Australian policies in Paris was requiring athletes to leave the village within 48 hours of finishing their events. The theory was straightforward: athletes whose competitions were over should not compromise those still preparing to perform by turning the village into a party.
Meares confirmed the policy will continue in LA, where the traditional Olympic rhythm will be flipped. Athletics will take centre stage in week one before swimming dominates the final nine days.
“It worked really well and was received well by the sports,” Meares says. “They can stay and come back for the closing [ceremony]. We had the biggest uptake of athletes attend the closing in Paris.”
This won’t be a cheap Games either. LA hotels are expected to command premium prices during the Olympics. Meares says the AOC spent about $25 million on its Paris campaign. For LA, she says the figure is expected to climb to about $38 million.
“You can’t shy away from it,” Meares says. “That’s everything from high-performance hubs, to support services, to accommodation, to travel, to uniforms, to insurance and legal costs.”
Australia’s swimmers normally command the bulk of the attention in the lead-up to an Olympics, but in 2028 they will be quietly going about their business at a training camp in San Diego when the Games begin.
Australian athletics, meanwhile, is enjoying a golden period, with success across multiple events and a crop of relatable stars eager to tell their stories.
Some would say the tide is turning, although swimming remains Australia’s biggest source of Olympic medals.
“What’s really exciting for me, especially after Commonwealth Games, was how much our athletics team is starting to lift,” Meares says.
“The athletes in there are going to be able to really capture [Australia’s attention] and deliver in that first week when we would normally have swimming kick-off quite big for the team.
“I think it might be a nice change for them.”
The AOC no longer sets a medal target – “I don’t think there’s a point of having a competition within the competition” – but there is quiet optimism Australia can improve again.
“The momentum is there for us,” Meares says. “At Paris [2024] and Milan [2026 Winter Olympics] we had our most successful campaigns and most successful teams. That makes me feel positive.
“We might have our biggest ever away team. If every sport qualifies, we could have up to 580 athletes in 40 sports [across] 51 disciplines.”
It is no secret the United States will be formidable on home soil. In Paris, the US and China finished level on 40 gold, but the Americans comfortably won the overall medal count.
“Any Aussies coming to LA, we want to see them in the crowd,” Meares says. “We want the Aussie flags, the boxing kangaroos, we want the Indigenous flag, the Torres Strait Islander flag. We want to see and hear them because we know the home crowd advantage is going to fall on the American team.
“We can’t underestimate that … but I think we’re up for the challenge.”
For all Australia’s success in Paris, Meares still had fires to put out.
There was hockey player Tom Craig’s cocaine arrest, swimming coach Michael Palfrey’s infamous “go Korea” comments, and the extraordinary global fallout surrounding breakdancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn.
One thing is certain: there will be dramas in LA. The difference is Meares now knows what the job looks like when the Olympics are unfolding at full speed.
“My experience in Paris was so much more enjoyable than any time I had as an athlete,” Meares says. “As an athlete, I wanted to get in, do my job and get out. I didn’t look up a lot.
“As chef [de mission], my whole point of being there was to have eyes up and see things before others could.
“I learnt that sport is really emotive and it’s far bigger than I ever understood.
“To deliver the Olympics, the magnitude of the operation is mind-blowing.
“I learnt that I could do it … with a really good team of people around me that I trust.”
