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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has adopted 40 reforms designed to stop the rising costs of hosting summer and winter editions of the Olympic Games.

The changes will enable future Olympic Games to be held in multiple cities and even in different countries.

The reforms have been designed to ease the burden on cities that were paying ever more to stage the games, a trend that culminated in the Russian city of Sochi paying $51 billion to host the last winter Olympics.

The change also means cities will now be urged to use existing infrastructure rather than build ambitious new venues that may have limited usage after the Games.

The IOC, at a meeting in Monaco, also removed the cap on the number of summer sports, currently at 28, but has limited the number of athletes and events.

While lobbying to remove sports such as walking and synchronised diving was unsuccessful, the number of events will be capped at 310 and the number of athletes at 10,500.

IOC representative from the Netherlands, Camiel Eurlings, said creating flexibility to lower the costs of hosting an event is essential for smaller countries.

Eurlings told the ABC “we have seen great games over the last decades but more and more often, it has been games of very big countries who fortunately can spend a lot of money for those games.

"But the IOC is a worldwide organisation so it is important that also smaller countries are still able to organise games.

"And I think that with offering the flexibility to make more use of existing infrastructure, more use of temporary infrastructure and also spreading the sports amongst many cities, more cities in the nation, that will absolutely help reduce the cost."

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