Cheers, fireworks as Brisbane awarded 2032 Olympics

Brisbane was awarded the 2032 Olympics today, triggering celebratory fireworks as it became the third Australian city to host the Summer Games, after Melbourne and Sydney.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach confirmed the widely expected result after a vote at the IOC session in Tokyo. "The International Olympic Committee has the honour to announce that the Games of the 35th Olympiad are awarded to Brisbane, Australia," Bach said.

The announcement was greeted by cheers from the Brisbane delegates in Tokyo, while fireworks lit up the skies above the Australian city thousands of miles (kilometres) away. Brisbane's victory looked a certainty after it was unanimously proposed as the single candidate for 2032 by the IOC's 15-strong executive board in June.

Australia has already hosted the Olympics twice, in Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in 2000, widely considered one of the most successful Games in recent history.

Hundreds of people packed Brisbane's Southbank riverside precinct for an announcement viewing party, watching the city's final pitch to the IOC projected on a big screen.

Home to about 2.3 million people and bookended by shimmering coastal sands, Brisbane is seen as more laid-back and less cosmopolitan than Australia's sprawling southern cities.

Venues will be spread across Brisbane and nearby towns in Queensland state, including the Gold Coast, which hosted the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

There are hopes the Olympics will boost Brisbane's profile, making it more attractive to tourists, who tend to use it as a jumping-off point for attractions like the Great Barrier Reef.

The awarding of the 2032 Olympics was the first to take place, with a new election method adopted in June 2019 in an attempt to counter application fees and a lack of serious bids. The vote took place two days before the troubled Tokyo Olympics, which will start behind closed doors Thursday after a year's delay because of the pandemic.- AFP