The story so far: Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly declared India’s intention to host the Olympic Games, preferably in 2036, during the opening ceremony of the 141st International Olympic Committee (IOC) session in Mumbai on October 14. He also mentioned India’s ambition to host the Youth Olympics in 2029 although the quadrennial event is currently scheduled for 2030. Only three Asian countries have ever hosted the Olympics — China, South Korea and Japan, with Japan hosting the games twice in 1964 and 2020. With India throwing its hat into the ring, there are at least five confirmed countries interested in hosting the 2036 Games and nine others reportedly in various stages of preparations and discussions internally and with the IOC. If India does manage to outbid the competition, it will be the first big-ticket multi-discipline sporting event in the country since the controversy-marred Commonwealth Games (CWG) in 2010.
How was a host country initially selected?
In the older system of electing an Olympic host, cities, through their respective national Olympic committees, would submit a letter of interest to the IOC to start a multi-year, multi-step evaluation process. The bidding cities would complete a series of questionnaires, evaluated by the IOC. The second step of the process involved scrutiny from the IOC Evaluation Commission and a series of inspections of all venues before the final bids are put to vote at an IOC session, ending in a host being decided seven years in advance as per the Olympic Charter. It often led to excessive spending among the bidders, to secure rights, often ending in huge debts, corruptions and scandals.
