From a grand attendance to a global audience, we look back at the 2021 Australian Swimming Championships and 2021 Australian Age Swimming Championships.

The highly acclaimed swimming championships were two of the first events to be supported by Major Events Gold Coast after opening their doors on July 1, 2020.

Returning to the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre, the Championships saw an incredible turnout, with both events livestreamed on Amazon Prime, showcasing the Gold Coast as an elite event destination to a global audience.

No stranger to hosting a high calibre of national and international sporting events, it’s easy to see why the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre was selected as the perfect venue for the two events. Famed for being a Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games legacy venue, the Centre is a world-class swimming and aquatic facility located on the Gold Coast’s Broadwater Parklands, Southport. The venue features five swimming pools, including a competition pool meeting international standards and FINA compliance, and offers the flexibility of expanding its seating capacity to 12,500 for major events.

The 2021 Australian Age Championships was one of their biggest yet after the 2020 event was cancelled due to COVID-19. The event formed part of the selection process for the international junior benchmark events for 2021 and saw a total of 2,130 athletes, clubs and support staff participate in the event with a whopping 13,298 spectators soaking up all the action.

In a point of difference, competitors in the Australian Swimming Championships received a taste of what competition in the 2020 Summer Tokyo Olympics (held in 2021) would be like, with finals swam in the morning, replicated by the same format at the Olympics. The Championships recorded a total of 882 athletes, clubs and support staff participate in the event with a total of 6,524 spectators.

Those who competed in the Championships and went on to the Tokyo Olympics to win gold include, Ariane Titmus, Zac Stubblety Cook and the Campbell sisters, just to name a few. Furthermore, a variety of competitors will also compete in the Tokyo Paralympic Games at the end of this month.

With the Championships extremely well received by all those involved, the events provided the Gold Coast with a well-deserved economic boost whilst putting the Gold Coast on the global stage as an exceptional major sporting event destination.

Major Events Gold Coast looks forward to working with Swimming Australia again in future, as well as welcoming new event organisers to the Gold Coast.