With Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public pitch about the country’s interest in hosting the Olympics in 2036, India has, albeit unofficially, entered the ring among other contenders eager to play hosts.
Officially, that can only happen when the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) presents an expression of interest (an official letter of interest, in other words) to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Currently, there are more than 10 countries who have expressed similar interest in hosting the 2036 Games, an IOC spokesperson said on Sunday.
Then, kickstarting a process that has been changed by the IOC since 2019, the body’s future host commission will get into “targetted dialogue” with the shortlisted National Olympic Committees (in India’s case, it’s the IOA, which has been under the IOC’s lens for its governance issues and absence of a CEO). The IOC will then select its pick. The decision regarding the hosts for 2036 will take a couple of years at least.
“Any decision will be made by a new IOC leadership and not before 2026 or 2027,” Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, who chairs the future host commission, said on the first day of the IOC Session in Mumbai.
Technical procedures aside, the potential interest means India stares at an unparalleled organisational operation of first bidding and then, if chosen by the IOC, delivering the biggest sporting event of the world.
Andrea Francisi, the Chief Games Operations Officer of the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, knows a thing or two about it. Operations-wise, the Summer and Winter Games are “more or less the same”, but, “of course, the Summer edition is bigger,” Francisi said.
“You will have in front of you more than 10 years. You can divide the period into three segments. The first segment is fully related to the bid document. Designing a bid is not very simple,” he added.
“Then, hopefully if and when India is awarded the rights to host the Games in 2036, you can divide that into two parts. First one relates to the designing and branding phase — you decide how you want to deliver the Games. And the last part is fully related to the delivery. We’re talking about around 50 functional areas in terms of operations. And each functional area should decide how to deliver.”
Back to the first part, the bidding process is no longer a money-spinning show of strength like it used to be. With its future host commission formed in 2019 which now examines and shortlists proposals, the IOC deals directly with the NOCs through continuous and targetted dialogue.
“It’s a bit like a recruitment process. And at some stage you’ll say: this candidate I can take forward,” an IOC spokesperson said. “While before, we had deadlines. We had a show where everyone votes.”
It meant splurging on getting advisors, public relations, etc on board. For Brisbane that was chosen to host the 2032 Games under this new process, there was an 80% reduction in costs in this entire process compared to the previous editions, according to Grabar-Kitarovic.
While India hasn’t yet made an official bid or picked a city for it, there’s a strong buzz around Ahmedabad. The IOC future host committee would examine the interested NOCs on various parameters, economic and otherwise. Sporting infrastructure already in place would play a key role, although it might not be a clincher.
“Paris (2024 Games), for example, built a swimming pool and a (Games) village, saying we need this. In LA (2028 Games), everything is already there. But that doesn’t mean that if India said they want to improve their sporting infrastructure and want to invest in it, it would stop the bid,” the IOC spokesperson said.
That sustainability and legacy factor, felt Francisi, is the biggest benefit for a country taking on the Olympics project. Francisi, who was also involved in the organisation of 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, said the city wore a completely different look “in terms of sports facilities” in the aftermath of the Games. “It offered different opportunities for young people interested in sports to start their training in a different environment,” he said.
Every city and country will have peculiar specifications and requirements in hosting an Olympics. The commonality being that hosting an Olympics “will change the face of a city” and “redesign the sports culture”, said Francisi.
“Hosting an Olympics will involve and employ thousands of people. In means economic development. It means a big boost to tourism. It means infrastructure development, which will also help sports to develop in a different way. And, it’s the biggest boost to develop sports in the country,” he added.
India is a long way away from that. It has, however, stated its intention of going down that path.
“It’s a big challenge, but it could change a lot of things,” said Francisi.
