This Olympic river has 500 crocodiles in it - but that's not the main concern

Image source, Supplied: Rockhampton Regional Council Image caption, Queensland's Fitzroy River, home to saltwater crocodiles, has been approved as an Olympics rowing venue for 2032

The annual rowing regatta for schools in the Australian state of Queensland usually passes off without too much attention.

Each year more than 600 of the state's most promising teenage rowers battle it out on the crocodile-inhabited Fitzroy River, in the city of Rockhampton.

"We've never had any media wanting to attend here," Anthea O'Loughlin, head of Rowing Queensland, tells the BBC.

But this year is different. In six years' time, the 2032 Brisbane Olympics and Paralympics are set to stage rowing and canoe sprint events in this very stretch of water, which has just passed a technical assessment and been endorsed as safe and fair for athletes.