For the 2000 Summer Olympics, a total of thirty sports venues were used. After Melbourne hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics, Australia made several bids for the Summer Olympics before finally winning the 2000 Summer Olympics by two votes over Beijing, China. Venue construction was set at the Homebush Bay area of Sydney in an effort to rehabilitate the land. Environmental studies of the area in the early 1990s forced remediation to be used for about a fifth of the site selected. Fifteen new venues were constructed for the Games. Many of the venues used for the 2000 Games continue to be in use as of 2020, although some of the pre-existing facilities have been demolished and replaced. Venues Sydney Olympic Park Sydney Outside Sydney Before the Olympics Australia first hosted the Summer Olympics in 1956 at Melbourne. The main venue used was the Melbourne Cricket Ground which hosted the ceremonies (opening/closing), athletic events, and the finals for both field hockey and football. Sydney first made preliminary plans for the 1972 and 1988 Summer Olympics, but they were not followed through. Melbourne made a bid for the 1988 Summer Games, but withdrew in February 1981. Brisbane made a bid for the 1992 Summer Olympics, losing out to Barcelona, while Melbourne finished fourth in the bidding for the 1996 Summer Olympics won by Atlanta. The first serious review for Sydney as an Olympic city took place in 1973 on rehabilitating the Homebush Bay area as an Olympic site, though those plans were not taken seriously until seven years later, when Sydney was making a preliminary bid for the 1988 Summer Games. Nick Greiner, who served as Premier of New South Wales from 1988 to 1992, led the effort to use the Olympics as a catalyst for rehabilitating Homebush Bay, forming a review committee on this in 1989. The Australian Olympic Committee endorsed this idea provisionally in December 1990 and officially three months later. In the bid package submitted to the International Olympic Committee for Sydney, all of the venues would be located within 30 minutes of the Homebush Bay Area, where the Sydney Olympic Park would be constructed. Sydney was selected 45–43 over Beijing in the fourth round of exhaustive voting to host the 2000 Games at the IOC Meeting in Monte Carlo on 23 September 1993. For site selection, of Homebush Bay was selected for use though the area was not