EDITORIAL

A Historic Moment For Betoota

The eyes of the world are on us.

Today, the proud desert township of Betoota officially launches its bold, strategic, and entirely realistic campaign to host the 2034 Winter Olympic Games. It’s a move that’s already stunned the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and confused several gatekeeping Europeans. Our town of several thousand people is ready to show the world that winter sport belongs in the heart of the Queensland Channel Country.

This is more than a bid. It’s a movement. And like every great movement in this nation’s history, it starts with a commemorative T-shirt.

Why Betoota?

Unbeatable Infrastructure

• Twenty-nine licensed venues with more taps than the Reece Plumbing outlet in Sunnybank.
• Space for an athletes’ village that will be repurposed into shitbox apartments, as what happened in Sydney.
• A public transport system second only to the likes of Toowoomba and possibly Townsville.

Snow-Making Technology

Our world-class snow-making plan combines country ingenuity with cutting-edge city resourcefulness. We’ve secured (borrowed) snow-making machines from Smiggin Holes, a new 70-Series Cruiser with a snow blade attached, and a handshake deal with the BoM to make it cold. If the people from Smiggin Holes want their stuff back, they will have to come and get it — and be ready for a fight.

Global Appeal

No other host city can promise sunburn and frostbite in the same day. Betoota will be the first Olympics where the opening ceremony is held entirely in the upstairs function space of a bowling club.

A Century-Old Dream

Sir Neville Overell, who was knighted for services to shooting Germans in WW1, shortly before he was found inventing the macarena at a Lucerne nightclub. PHOTO: Overell Family Archive

This bid is more than civic ambition, it’s a family legacy. The seeds were sown in 1926 when Sir Neville Overell, great-grandfather of The Betoota Advocate’s own Clancy Overell, travelled to Switzerland in a last-ditch effort to win the 1928 Winter Games for the Queensland Channel Country.

Neville was a gifted all-rounder in the ice-based sports he had read about in The Illustrated London News. Unfortunately, during a “diplomatic evening” in Bern with the Swiss delegates, he was struck down with what local doctors described as “catastrophic alcohol poisoning” after a night on the tiles involving Kirsch, schnapps, and a drinking contest with the mayor of Lausanne.

He never returned to his beloved Queensland. But the dream of seeing a Winter Games in Betoota never died. Every generation since has carried the torch — not the Olympic one, which is banned from airports — but the metaphorical one, fuelled by ambition, resilience, and the memory of Neville enjoying that last glass of port that did him in.

How We’ll Win The Bid

IOC Hospitality Package

• Free schooners for every delegate, every night. It’s what Neville would’ve wanted.
• A ceremonial opening by Shannon Noll performing Lift from a chairlift.
• Closing fireworks so big they’ll be visible from Cunnamulla.

Environmental Commitment

• 100% solar-powered things.
• Net-zero carbon emissions (we will just say this and hope they don’t check).
• Net-positive beer consumption.

How You Can Help

Right now, the most important thing you can do is wear your support on your chest. The Official Betoota 2034 Winter Olympic Bid T-shirt isn’t just cotton — it’s a wearable lobbying device.

Every shirt sold is a message to the IOC that Betoota has the numbers, the passion, and the fashion sense to host the Winter Games.

100% of profits go directly towards Olympic bid essentials like:

• Bribes for IOC delegates.
• Bribes for IOC delegates.
• Bribes for IOC delegates.

Betoota’s 2034 Winter Olympic Bid Shirt

A$39.00

Betoota’s 2034 Winter Olympic Bid Hoodie

A$79.95

Bid FAQ

Where will the athletes stay?
In or near Betoota. Hopefully.

How will you keep the snow cold?
We’ll have it in July when it’s cold.

Why winter games in the desert?
Because you city people don’t understand that a desert can also be cold! In July, it’s cold!

Will tickets be affordable?
Absolutely. Locals get a family pass in exchange for a garbage bag of empty cans.

The Movement Is Growing

• The CWA has pledged to run the Olympic Village canteen/bistro, serving steak and kidney pies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Rude athletes (Scandinavians) will be given a stern lecture and/or flogged by the jackaroos.
• Local tradies have promised to finish any construction “by the time the Games start” (or a week after, at the latest) unless the CFMEU wants to hold things up for some reason.
• The Betoota Dolphins rugby league team is ready to repurpose their training field into a hockey rink. They’ll leave the tap on when we get a frost and away we go.

Your Role In Betoota’s Olympic History

Wearing the Betoota 2034 T-shirt is about more than backing a bid. It’s about showing the world that ambition isn’t measured in vertical metres of snow, it’s measured in how many rules (laws) need to be broken to make it happen.

We can’t build this dream without you. The IOC votes soon (within the decade). Every shirt bought is another potential bribe.

This is bigger than sport. This is bigger than Betoota. This is about proving, once and for all, that if Jamaica can have a bobsled team, then the Channel Country can host the Winter Olympics.

A Word From The Mayor

“On behalf of the people of Betoota, I want to extend my deepest thanks to every person who has purchased an official Betoota 2034 Winter Olympic Bid T-shirt. You are not just buying a piece of cotton, printed in Australa, you are investing in the future of our great town, in the legacy of Neville Overell, and in the dream that has burned for nearly a century.

This bid will not be easy. There will be challenges, from finding enough snow, to convincing the IOC that bobsledding on bitumen is a legitimate discipline. All it will take is freshly laundered money from our town’s vast supply of poker machines. But with your support, we can and will bring the Winter Games to the Channel Country.

So wear your shirt proudly. Tell your mates. Tell the world. And let’s get Betoota on that Olympic map.

Yours in sport and civic pride,
Councillor Keith Carton
Mayor of Betoota

ENDS