Delhi has been trying its best to claim its position as the host of the Olympics. And on this pathway, Delhi has once again thrown its hat in the ring to host the Olympics, nearly 27 years before the proposed addition. This proposal comes after witnessing two failed attempts. The timing also holds immense pre-planning as it is at least 14 years before the host selection process gets underway.
The deputy chief minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia made a pledge on Tuesday to launch a bid for the 2048 games. He also said that this would be the best way to Mark a hundred years of India’s independence while he presented the Delhi Budget. The Finance Minister of Delhi said that the government is trying its best to bring the sports facilities and the right atmosphere towards sports competitions to a new competitive level through the new sports University.
Arvind Kejriwal, the chief Minister of Delhi, also anchored and promoted the vision of organizing the 39th Olympic sports competitions in 2048 in Delhi. He assured the citizens that the government will be upfront in taking up whatever infrastructural changes that would be required for hosting the Olympics.
The long pre-planned projects for hosting the Olympics aren’t only special to the Indian government. Countries start making necessary arrangements years and years before they actually plan to organize the games. For instance, the Beijing games which were hosted by China in 2008 were being strategically planned by the country through its Olympic strategy formulated in 1985.
The next 32nd Olympic games are scheduled to be held in Tokyo, Japan while the host cities for the next three games have already been decided.
Who decides the host country?
The responsibility of deciding the host city lies on the International Olympic committee or IOC. Currently, the committee is in the process of deciding the final host for the 2032 games edition and has no near future plans to decide on the host for 2048 games for which Delhi has shown interest.
Once the host city for 2032 games is decided, the committee will move further to select the venues for games scheduled in the years 2036, 2040 and 2044 before actually searching for the appropriate city for 2048 games. There are intimidations that the 2032 addition of games is planned to be hosted by Brisbane.
What is the process of selecting the host city?
Lately, the International Olympic committee has been following a new process to select host cities. Under this process, an IOC committee and gets in touch with the cities that show interest to host the games. The vetting of the bids is also done by the same committee.
Next, it gets into discussions with the governments of the interested countries and/ or any other interested parties or stakeholders. Finally, the committee draws results based on its observations and recommends a potential host to the executive board. The board then takes a final call.
Before adaptation of this process, the countries interested in hosting the Olympics were put in direct competition with each other and the executive board was required to vote for countries based on their presentations. The country which received the most votes would be awarded the privilege to host the games. However, this process was dropped by the committee considering the fact that it was expensive and faced acquisitions of not being fair to all the parties.
When were the previous attempts made by India to show interest in hosting the Olympics?
In a span of the last 10 years, the Indian subcontinent has shown interest in hosting the sporting extravaganza twice with the first pitch being for the 2024 Olympics. Delhi and Ahmedabad were the expected host cities for the games. However, the bid was fizzled out even before it received any serious consideration.
In 2015, the President of the International Olympic committee Thomas Bach had a meeting with Indian prime Minister Narendra Modi in which he said that India was not yet ready to host the extravaganza inviting sports persons from over 200 nations. “It will be a little too quick for India to have a successful Olympics in 2024,” he said.
The other interest to host the Olympic games was made in 2018 by the then chief minister of Maharashtra- Devendra Fadnavis. He pitched Mumbai as a potential host for the Olympic games to be conducted in the year 2032. However, once again, dashing the Indian hopes, the Olympic committee last month announced its decision to hand over the 2032 Olympics and paralympics to Brisbane.
How strong is the case for India today?
Well, this time India seems way more prepared than the other two times in history. Being one of the earliest pitchers of the 2048 Olympics, India has brought on itself enough time to make preparations to present a strong case.
Sisodia said the bid actually is not as early in time as it looks on paper. Simply taking into the calculation that it would take nearly 15 years to build adequate infrastructure and to flourish an atmosphere cohesive of sports. It would also take a lot of time for India to bring its players to a level where they can fetch more and more medals for the country.
The interest shown by the Delhi government is not enough to invite global considerations. The sentiment of Delhi needs to be consented to and guaranteed by the central and other state governments along with the Indian Olympic association.
How are the Olympic preparations in Tokyo going on?
Adhering to the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic Japan has made a decision to stage this year’s Tokyo Olympics and paralympics without any foreign spectators. After being postponed by a year due to the pandemic, the games are set to begin from July 23 lasting till August 8. On the other hand, the paralympics will be scheduled from August 24 to September 25.
A poll by Yomiuri newspaper showed that most Japanese people are not willing to invite international visitors to the games because of the fear of the spread of the virus and its new variants that might lead to a resurgence of infections in the country. The data collected by the survey showed that only 18% of Japanese people were in favour of inviting foreign people to attend the event as against 77% of respondents who were against it.
