The Australian city of Brisbane moved one step closer to earning the bid for the 2032 Olympics on Tuesday, as City Council voted to formally put the city forward as a bid for the Games in an eight-hour closed door session.
According to the Brisbane Times, councillors were forced to sign confidentiality agreements before the meeting started, and after the motion was carried, a large round of applause was heard in Brisbane Square.
Only one councillor, Australian Greens member Jonathan Sri, voted against the proposal.
Brisbane mayor Adrian Schrinner tweeted out that the vote was a “critical milestone” in the city’s journey to host the Games.
Today marked a critical milestone in the journey to hosting an #Olympics with the Schrinner Council Administration voting “yes” to the jobs created by an #OlympicGames, “yes” to the opportunities a Games would bring to our city and “yes” to fast-tracking investment in our region. pic.twitter.com/ZcQrLQuRmO
— Adrian Schrinner (@bne_lordmayor) March 23, 2021
The City Council’s approval comes one month after the International Olympic Committee named Brisbane as the preferred candidate to the host the Games.
The capital of the state of Queensland, Brisbane is Australia’s third most populous city, with an estimated 2.5 million people in its metropolitan area alone.
Moving forward, the Queensland and Australian national governments must provide written agreements ahead of an April 7 deadline. Both levels of government have already expressed full support for the project, so there aren’t expected to be any roadblocks.
Once the paperwork is signed, the IOC could officially name Brisbane as the host of the 2032 Games as early as July 20-21, during the IOC’s next Session prior to the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo.
However, Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) President John Coates warns that things are far from a done deal.
“There is much work to be done,” Coates said, according to Inside The Games. “The great news is that you are taking the correct first steps in Phase One of the legacy planning journey.
“With big, ambitious and inspiring ideas in the very best tradition of the Olympics.”
Coates is also an IOC vice-president and a close ally of president Thomas Bach.
“I add, that this is as it must be – Queensland deserves that. You have rightly set the bar very high and now comes the hard part. Because Phase Two is the giant leap over it.”
If everything moves forward as expected, 2032 would mark the third time Australia hosted the Summer Olympics, also doing so in 1956 (Melbourne) and 2000 (Sydney).