Well we had beach volleyball at the 2000 Olympic Games and the ice skating rink in winter for last few years. Now Waverley Council has said it will host the International Beach Polo Tournament at Bondi Beach on 9th May 2015. This one day event is expected to attract around 4000 people and will involve bringing in polo ponies to Bondi Beach and the building of infrastructure to support such an event.

The Council has approved the event “in principle” subject to a few conditions, including the satisfactory submission of a final Event Management Plan (which meets traffic, parking and complying regulatory requirements) at least 16 weeks prior to the event occupation period.

It’s worth noting that this event was not unanimously approved. Four councillors opposed the motion to approve this proposal at the Council’s Operations Committee Meeting held on 1 July 2014.

There has been little press about this proposal, but here is an article written by Emily Contador-Kelsall.

Of course such an idea is completely ludicrous to me – and I suspect to many other locals also. Aren’t there already healthy numbers of tourists in Bondi Beach? Aren’t people all around the world already aware of Brand Bondi?

Yet, for Waverley Council, having Bondi host the International Beach Polo Tournament, [such] a prestigious international sporting event, “will help promote and showcase Bondi Beach to the rest of the world and could bring social, physical and economic benefits to Bondi.”

Really?

I think Sally Betts might need to knock on a few residents’ doors and really gauge how many locals think that attracting another 4000 people to Bondi in one day (together with all the other repercussions that such an event would have on the area) is going to bring them social, physical and economic benefits!

Well we got down to the beach at around 12.15pm and discovered that the thong challenge was about to begin.
We stopped to watch. The water conditions were perfect for supporting 2000 or so participants to float out on their thong to try and break the world record. It was impressive to see how orderly these thongers were in the water and on the sand.

Participants patiently waiting to be called to head into the water

Apparently the world record was not beaten however and Bondi only got to second place. Cottesloe retained the world record for the highest number of people in the water on giant havaianas – only by 23 thongers!

Thongers line up in the water in a very orderly fashion

Just goes to show, that for all the hype and fame surrounding Bondi, more people participated in this Australia Day event in Cottesloe than they did in Bondi. I wonder what that says?