If everything goes according to plan, in eleven years' time Torrie Lewis will bow to a cheering crowd and then receive an Olympic medal.

The 15-year-old exceptional sprinter from Brisbane should start the starting blocks as the favorite in her hometown at the age of 27 and after two Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028.

From now on, she will train daily to deliver the run of her life at the 35th Olympiad in Brisbane in 2032, the teenager said.

Christoph Hein

Business correspondent for South Asia / Pacific based in Singapore.

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Brisbane had tried to host the Games 35 years ago.

At that time, the city in the middle of the east coast came third in the elimination that Barcelona won.

Now the capital of the state of Queensland is at the top of the podium.

"The other cities that have presented their plans are in parking position for future games," John Coates confidently announced in the spring.

The Sydney lawyer, a confidante of IOC President Thomas Bach and himself Vice President of the IOC, has headed the Australian Olympic Committee for almost 30 years, played an important role in Sydney's bid for the 2000 Games, and is considered the architect behind Brisbane's bid.

At the same time, however, Coates was the driving force behind the new bidding process in the IOC's “Agenda 2020 / New Norm” reform committee.

Australian media were therefore uncaring that Coates had gained an advantage for the games in his home country.

The IOC immediately emphasized that the Australian was in no way involved in the selection and decision.

The prime minister is a marketing expert

However, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison played a major role: despite Corona, he was sitting with Bach and Coates in a hotel room in Tokyo a good year ago. Morrison, derided by his opponents as "Scotty from Marketing", once headed Tourism Australia. With this experience he grew rampant: he promoted his country like no other. Another meeting of the trio followed in Tokyo in mid-November, when Morrison met the new Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, and made the Olympics a top priority.

Brisbane appears prepared for the third games on the fifth continent after Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in 2000: the city stands for modern, cosmopolitan Australia. The metropolis already has almost 2.5 million inhabitants, many of them with Asian roots. “Brizzy” is a friendly city on a meandering river, without the airs of the traditional metropolis Melbourne or the glitz and glitter of Sydney. In 1982 the city hosted the Commonwealth Games, followed in 2001 by the Goodwill Games with 1,300 athletes. Three years ago, the neighboring Gold Coast, soon to be part of the Olympic events, hosted the Commonwealth Games.

At the summit of the heads of state and government of the G-20 countries in 2014, Brisbane proved that it can hold major events against protests. At that time, Chancellor Angela Merkel immediately captured the hearts of the very relaxed citizens when she and her entourage drove to a pub on Caxton Street right after landing. The city is one of the centers for German companies and scientists "down-under"; Among other things, the armaments company Rheinmetall is building a large factory here to process billions in orders for the Australian army.

Even before the games were awarded, they were instrumentalized. The Prime Minister of Queensland, Annastacia Palaszczuk, spoke of a "new golden age" for her country. The government expects the major event to create around 130,000 jobs at a cost of around 4.5 billion Australian dollars (2.8 billion euros). After Corona, tourism is likely to add around 20 billion Australian dollars to the coffers thanks to the Olympics. Brisbane is considered by many to be the gateway to the world heritage site of the Great Barrier Reef, whose foothills can be reached in four hours from here. The IOC promises 1.7 billion US dollars, another will be earned through tickets, sponsors provided the third billion, Coates calculates: "That is enough,to pay for the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games without digging into the budget. "

Olympic Village in Hamilton

The preparatory work is already beginning: in Hamilton, just six kilometers outside the business district, the state holds around 50 hectares of land on the river, on which an Olympic village for 14,000 athletes is to grow. A second athletes' village with 2000 beds is to be built on the Gold Coast, and a third with at least 600 beds on the Sunshine Coast. The stages have not yet been decided. Either the Gabba Stadium is to be renovated for 2032, or a new one for 40,000 spectators at Albion Park to host the opening and closing ceremonies. Already today the city with its almost tropical climate - the games will take place with pleasant temperatures in the Australian winter from July 23rd to August 8th - 14 large sports venues, the Gold Coast has another seven,the Sunshine Coast offers five and sailing could take place in front of the Whitsundays archipelago right on the Barrier Reef - one of the most picturesque areas in the world.

However, conflicts are also foreseeable in Brisbane: In the future, the Olympics will do without “white elephants”, major projects that will expire after the Games. Which is why the Brisbane proposal focuses on the use of existing or at least infrastructure under construction. But of course “down-under” mayors also hope to bring the blessing of Olympia to their rapidly growing population through new roads and railways. "They are not conditions for hosting successful games, but of course it would help enormously if, for example, the transport corridors were expanded," says Coates. Palaszczuk himself, however, looks at the budget and emphasizes that "90 percent of the necessary infrastructure" is already in place.