Move over Melbourne and Sydney, the Gold Coast has the winning edge.

In the pre-dawn light, cars are pulling into parking lots along the stretch of beaches that form the eastern boundary of Australia’s legendary Gold Coast.

Not just a few. Hundreds. Every day. They are carrying the surfers hoping to catch a few waves before they have to ditch their board shorts and don a suit for work.  As the sun pokes its head over the Pacific Rim, the joggers and walkers start filling the sandy expanses washed clean by the night’s high tide. They’ll greet each other but respect the concentration sought by the yoga devotees stretching on the beach in salute to the emerging morning.  Trainers are barking instructions to fitness groups in the adjacent parks, and squadrons of bike riders are chewing up kilometres of effort going nowhere in particular, but getting there fast.

This is the Gold Coast waking up. This is a city that gets outside and sucks in the salty air after a bit of exercise before breakfast.

Those morning rituals point to a bigger picture – the Gold Coast is Australia’s sporting centre of excellence.

It is one of the reasons the Gold Coast was chosen to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

The city has sport in its DNA.

The region’s hinterland is a lush paradise to explore.  So many things contribute to this. The people, for one – this is a community that was founded by individuals who revelled in an outdoor lifestyle, chasing waves and fish and fun.

The climate is perfect. The Gold Coast, about an hour’s drive south of the Queensland capital Brisbane on Australia’s east coast, receives an average of 10 hours of sunshine a day, 300 days a year.

The environment, both natural and built, provides a plethora of training opportunities. Athletes can make use of 35 miles of coastline, 81 square miles of parklands, 125 miles of navigable waterways and heritage-listed rainforests for training and recovery sessions.

But it is the city’s growing international reputation as a sporting destination that has seen a stellar roster of champion teams and individuals beat a path to its door, drawn by the modern infrastructure, cutting-edge research in sports science and innovative coaching techniques.

The Gold Coast is using the Commonwealth Games to turbocharge its transformation from a vibrant regional centre in Australia to a genuinely global base for sporting professionals, spending billions of pounds in a major infrastructure program.

This includes AUS$200m in new and upgraded sport and event infrastructure, building on the city’s existing high-performance sports facilities.

This investment will enable the city to host bigger national and international events, encourage international teams to establish their global headquarters and provide some of the best facilities in Australia for high-performance training camps.

The Gold Coast already has proven credentials as a results incubator.

In the lead up to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, it opened its doors to more than 1,300 athletes from 15 countries, including the British team which went on to snare a significant gold-medal haul.

English Premier League team Manchester City spent a week training on the Gold Coast in 2015, playing friendlies against A-League sides Melbourne City and Adelaide United at Cbus Super Stadium.

Footballers from Spain’s Villareal, the British diving and swimming teams, England’s national rugby league team and the American, Canadian, Chinese and Japanese swim teams have also trained on the Gold Coast.

Meanwhile, the Australian Institute of Sport calls the Gold Coast home for its sprint canoe, triathlon and BMX programmes, and Swimming Australia has endorsed a number of training facilities on the Gold Coast.

The city is also the base for a large number of high-profile athletes including Sally Pearson, Cameron McEvoy, Mick Fanning and Emma Moffatt, who are supported by some of the world’s best coaching, management and medical staff.

“It’s starting to really build and be noticed as a great sporting destination,” says hurdler and long-time Gold Coast resident Pearson.

Pearson, who won gold in the 100m hurdles at the 2010 and 2014 Commonwealth Games and the 2012 Olympics, was the first person to be named as a Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games ambassador last year, a role she relishes.

“It’s pretty easy to promote a great city,” she says. “If it’s an outdoor, all-weather sport then you can train all year round.  “Getting around is easy. You can have a wonderful life as well as being able to train in world-class facilities. You have the beach to swim, walk along and surf.”

The Gold Coast already hosts a full calendar of major sporting events annually, including the WSL professional surfing event, ITU World Triathlon Series, Australian Surf Life Saving Championships and the Australian PGA Golf Championship.

This is just a start for a city with big sporting ambitions. A strong event acquisition strategy has seen the city secure the 2017 Badminton World Federation Sudirman Cup – the first time the event has been hosted outside Asia or Europe – the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games and the 2020 World Bowls Championships, with many more to be announced in the coming months.

People in the know are sitting up and taking notice of this transformation. Sport Business International named the Gold Coast best newcomer in its bi-annual Ultimate Sport Cities Rankings and Awards in 2016, and the city had a meteoric rise up 39 places on the Sportcal Global Sports Index, ranking it as the 18^th top-sporting city in the world.  Athletes put Gold Coast’s sporting facilities to the test.

“We will be attracting world-class events to the city,” City of Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate says, adding that most of the facilities for the Games will be finished by November.  “Our main stadium is already built, the Aquatic Centre is already built. I’m confident that all the facilities will be built and tested well ahead of time. We’ve already hosted the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships at the Aquatic Centre. We have tested it out and it’s been a success, so I am really happy with that.”

There is strong support for the Games among the sports-loving Gold Coast community. In February, more than 10,000 applications were received in the first 24 hours after a call-out for volunteers.

“The phone rang off the hook,” Mayor Tate says. “We only need 15,000 but I think we’ll get around 30,000 applications.”

Tate hopes the 11-day Commonwealth Games, which will be broadcast to a potential global audience of more than 1.5 billion, will raise the profile of the city’s overall sporting credentials.

“I want to make sure people look to the Gold Coast for a training facility… that when it’s cold and you want off-season training the Gold Coast would be a great place to come,” he says.  “It’s not just our sporting facilities but also our hospital and university where athletes can be monitored.  The state-of-the-art professional analysis of body mechanics are all here as well. We have the science, the facilities and the weather is counter-cyclical to the northern hemisphere.”

Gold medal-winning Olympic rower Duncan Free, who is director of the Sport College at Griffith University, spent 20 years training in the region and agrees the Gold Coast is the complete package.

“The university is across the road from the Athlete’s Village,” he says. “It’s a large, sport-focused university offering everything required as part of an elite athlete’s training, from physio to nutrition to sports psychology and massage. It’s a one-stop shop, which makes life a little easier.”

Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation chairman Peter Beattie, a former premier of Queensland, says Commonwealth Games athletes would be competing with “the best backdrop in the world” behind them.  He’s also proud the Games would include many firsts – and he doesn’t mean competition results.

For instance, it will be the first Games to award an equal number of medals to women and men. “This doesn’t even happen at the Olympics,” Mr Beattie says.

Two indigenous Gold Coast elders, Patricia O’Connor and Ted Williams, were also invited to join the launch of the Commonwealth Games Queen’s baton relay at Buckingham Palace, calling on other First Nations people from around the world to attend the event.

“The other thing that we’re proud of is that the Games are integrated,” Mr Beattie says. “The Olympics and Paralympics are separate events. At the Commonwealth Games you will see the full-bodied event and the next race will be the para-sport event.  This is the biggest Commonwealth Games para-sport programme ever, with 38 para-sport events.”

Mr Beattie says the event will transform the Gold Coast. “It will be a real shot in the arm,” he said. “The Gold Coast will, in many respects, become the sporting events capital of Australia.”