It had been 40 years since we had hosted anything of this magnitude, the 1956 Olympic rowing on Lake Wendouree, and it would be more than a decade before we hosted the first AFL premiership season match on Mars.

Basketball reinvigorated big sporting dreams for this city, effectively sparking the first moves to lobby for a modern, indoor sporting arena that was finally realised four years ago and that is pegged to become a Commonwealth Games venue in its own right.

Now basketball is set to put us to a pivotal test once more.

While we are not hosting basketball in the 2026 Games - those honours, in three-on-three format. go to Bendigo.

We are set to have thousands of pint-sized basketballers, in comparison, set to make a huge impact when they hit the floor this weekend in one of the city's biggest annual events, Basketball Ballarat 50^th annual junior tournament.

Even more so, because their sporting world collides with soccer's Victorian country championships bringing in hundreds more juniors from out of town.

We had said before and it needs saying again: how we, as a city, respond will be most telling.

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Almost all our soccer pitches will be in use. Twenty-four basketball courts across the city are in the line-up - a massive feat given Selkirk Stadium houses eight of these.

Logistically, none of this comes with Commonwealth Games supports in transport or a specially coordinated volunteer fleet across Ballarat. There is no special city activation party, like we had during the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

There is no athlete's village but accommodation in town is booked out.

This is pretty much up to us and how we welcome the chaos as we, too, enjoy the King's Birthday long weekend.

There will be niggles. Right now, our best indoor stadium is leaking and our soccer pitches are a little slippery.

But if most families can walk away from the weekend smiling, we know we are on to a winner.

To pull off Olympic rowing and Commonwealth Games preliminary rounds in basketball are impressive sporting feats.

We are about to take our game and our reputation to the next level in becoming a key Commonwealth Games host city in 2026, holding the athletics at Mars Stadium, the boxing next door at Selkirk Stadium and mountain biking nearby in Creswick.

Juniors in action this weekend might not be elite athletes - yet - but they sure arrive with an entourage of a different kind.

If we want to host one of the world's biggest shows, a weekend like this weekend is a taster we need to take seriously.

In true sporting fashion, we must keep striving for how we can get better as a city. As in AFL parlance, one percenters truly count now.

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