IAAF president Sebastian Coe says Australia should bid for more major sporting events, endorsing the country's potential tilt for the 2028 Olympics and encouraging a proposal to host an historic world athletics championships.
Lord Coe is visiting the Gold Coast this weekend to discuss the world athletics governing body's reform proposals with Oceania stakeholders, ahead of a Special Congress with all member federations in December.
A month after southeast Queensland mayors decided to fund a feasibility study into a possible Brisbane campaign for the 2028 Games, the British Olympic Association chairman and former London 2012 Olympics boss unequivocally backed the concept.
Coe said Australia boasted from a "bandwidth of experience" in delivering major events, stemming from the remarkably successful Sydney 2000 Olympics and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.
"This (Brisbane) would be a very attractive proposition," Coe told AAP.
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"Anything in Australia is a credible thought because you have, in the past, proven that you not only deliver Games effectively, you deliver them extremely well.
"I don't have any sleepless nights over the operational ability of Australians to deliver great sporting events.
"It's sort of in your DNA."
That Gold Coast City and Logan City Councils both opted out of contributing to the cost of the feasibility study renders any bid substantially more difficult, especially given that Gold Coast's existing facilities make the beachside hotspot a vital accommodation hub.
However, Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates and 62 per cent of southeast Queenslanders have welcomed the study, and there is hope that once the 2018 Commonwealth Games have finished the Gold Coast will be more keen to come on board before a formal bidding begins in 2019.
Coe also gave Athletics Australia (AA) the clearest indication yet that a push to host a first world athletics championships would be welcomed by the IAAF.
Australia made bids to host track and field's biggest meet in both 2009 and 2011 but lost to Berlin and Daegu.
But AA is on the verge of releasing its vision through to 2030, which is understood to include renewed aspirations to hold a world championships somewhere at home.
"I'd love to see a world athletics championships here. That, I think, would be fantastic," Coe said.
"I cannot imagine ... that this wouldn't be looked on very well by an IAAF council at some stage."
