Narendra Modi government wants India to bid for 2024 Olympics

BENGALURU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach will meet later this month in New Delhi to discuss India's likely bid for the 2024 Olympic Games.

"The Union government is exploring the possibility of India hosting the Olympics. This will be one of the key issues to be discussed by the PM and Bach," sources told TOI.

Bach, who will visit the country on April 27, is bullish about India and is keen that the country bid for the Games, sources said. "How can we ignore a country of 1.2 billion people?" sources quoted him as saying.

Reports in sections of the media had said Ahmedabad had been chosen as the host city for the bid. But a source denied it, saying, "The venue was not discussed at all. When there is no final decision on whether India needs to bid or not, how can we shortlist the venue?"

But apparently Modi was keen to know the implications of hosting an Olympics. "The PM is open to the idea of bidding for the Games. He indicated that if we launch a bid, it has to be serious. He obviously did not want a repeat of the 2010 Commonwealth Games which was hit by scandals. He wanted to know the costs, financial implications and other details," the source said.

Bach said that the 2020 Olympics in another Asian city (Tokyo) will not harm the prospects of India hosting the 2024 edition. "Among the other bidders, the US and Germany have already hosted the Olympics. We would welcome Olympics in a country which has not hosted it before. The IOC believes that Olympics in India would be a game-changer for the country. It will help in developing sports and channel the energies of youth," sources quoted him as saying.

A formal invite from the Union government was handed over to Bach in Lausanne last week. The bidding calendar for the 2024 Olympics began with the invitation phase on January 15. India has until September 15 this year to send the name of their applicant city to the IOC. It has to be routed through the Indian Olympic Association.

Rome, Boston and Hamburg are already in the race. Potential bids are likely to emerge from Nairobi (Kenya), Casablanca (Morocco), Doha (Qatar), Paris (France) and St Petersburg (Russia) amongst others.

The IOC working group will assess the applicant cities in March next year before the executive board selects the candidate cities based on the group's report.