THE Australian city of Brisbane will host the 2032 summer Olympics after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) yesterday approved the recommendation of its executive board.

Brisbane becomes the third Australian city to get the Games after Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in 2000.

Its selection means Australia becomes only the second country in the world, after the United States, to stage summer Olympic Games in three different cities.

Several cities and countries had publicly expressed an interest in staging the 2032 Games including Indonesia, Hungary’s capital Budapest, Qatar’s Doha and Germany’s Ruhr valley region.

But in a new process adopted by the IOC that does not openly pit cities against each other, Brisbane had already moved ahead of any rival back in February, having been selected as a “preferred host.”

The city’s bid had earned repeated praise from the IOC for its high percentage of existing venues, support from all levels of government and the private sector, experience in organizing major events and its favorable weather, among other things.

The state of Queensland hosted the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Tokyo is hosting the postponed 2020 Olympics this week and Paris will stage the 2024 Games. Los Angeles has been awarded the 2028 Summer Olympics. (SD-Agencies)