India plans to bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games and will show its strengths at the next International Olympic Committee (IOC) session, due to be held in Bombay in late 2023, India’s sports minister has announced.
For Anurag Thakur, it is the “right time” for his country to bid to organize the world’s biggest sporting event, he told the Times of India newspaper.
“With India putting so much effort into promoting sport, I can assure you that we will not just host the Olympics, we will host them in a big way,” the sports minister continued in an interview published on Wednesday.
Mr Thakur said India could run with the city of Ahmedabad in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, which is home to the world’s largest stadium, which opened in 2020 and is named after the leader.
A roadmap outlining Ahmedabad’s journey to host the Games will be presented at the 140th session of the IOC, the governing body of the Olympic body, to be held in Bombay in September-October 2023.
Narendra Modi’s government aspires to make India a global sports powerhouse and has invested huge sums in national infrastructure.
The IOC has awarded Paris (2024), Los Angeles (2028) and Brisbane (2032) the organization of the next three Summer Olympics.
In October, the IOC announced that ten countries had already expressed interest in hosting the 2036 Olympic Games. These countries include Indonesia, Germany, South Korea, China and Qatar.
India hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2010 but the event was marred by numerous allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
Another negative point for India is its national Olympic Committee in the IOC’s sights, which in September threatened to suspend it, as it had done in 2012 and 2014 over “recurrent internal conflicts and governance issues” at the body.
The IOC had therefore decided to postpone its next meeting to September/October 2023, originally planned for May in Bombay.