The eleventh Suncorp North Queensland Games was staged in the Cairns region over Easter. Since 1984, the Games has been rotated on a biennial basis, around the four major centres of North Queensland, namely Townsville, Mount Isa, Cairns and Mackay.
The Games are reputedly the largest regional games in Australia, emphasised by the longevity of the event. Organised by the North Queensland Sports Foundation, the Games are the flagship of its many activities in the quest to develop sport at a grass roots level, in this huge region of Australia. The Games are always held at Easter, with thousands of competitors and officials travelling from all over the North Queensland region and beyond to attend the Games.
The North Queensland Sports Foundation is driven by the financial support from a total of thirty-one Local Councils throughout North Queensland. The decision makers of the Board of the Foundation consist of Councillors and community members from the Shire and City Councils. The local Organising committee in Cairns were vested with the smooth organisation of this very large event. Working with the local sporting groups, competitions were staged throughout the Cairns region including the surrounding shires of Douglas, Johnstone, Herberton and Atherton. Townsville also staged some of the sports due to available facilities (eg the ice sports at the only available ice rink in North Queensland).
Suncorp has been the naming rights sponsor of the Games since its inception, (previously SGIO North Queensland Games) and continues to show tremendous support for the event. Suncorp CEO John Mulcahy attended this year’s Games for a first hand experience of this unique North Queensland event.
The 2004 Games included forty sports ranging in variety from the more obvious and popular sports of athletics, gymnastics, swimming, soccer and rugby league but included some of the lesser known such as shooting events, oztag and broomball (which is played on ice). The signature event was the Suncorp North Queensland Pyramid Challenge, where handpicked runners were required to run to the top and back of the spectacular mountain, Walsh’s pyramid, which is about twenty minutes south of Cairns in Gordonvale. This endurance run certainly tested the runners, as the weather conditions were wet and windy, but nevertheless the winner of the men’s section, Nathan Walmsley from Cairns just pipped Max Fegan from Townsville in a very good time of 1hour 27 minutes. The winner of the women’s section, Janelle Tilse from Mackay was not far behind on 1 hour 46 minutes.
Special Guest for the Games was Ji Wallace, the silver medallist in Trampoline Sports at Sydney 2000. Ji officially opened the Games at a spectacular Opening Ceremony, which was held at the newly developed Barlow Park in Cairns. Ji also assisted at the Trampoline Sports segment of the Games, where he was understandably a very welcomed guest by the competitors. This became even more memorable, when he presented a special performance showing all the skills that enabled him to become the first ever Australian to win a medal in trampoline sports at any Olympic Games.
Following the success of the 2004 Suncorp North Queensland games, the North Queensland Sports Foundation is now concentrating on this year’s sporting development programmes. Nevertheless the Foundation has an eye on the preparation for next Games and the next host region, Mackay. The twelfth Games, which will be held in the Mackay region in 2006, will complete the third rotation to all the four major centres.
