Why in News
India plans to bid for Olympics 2036.
How were Olympic host cities initially selected?
In the older system of electing an Olympic host, cities, through their respective national Olympic committees.
NOC 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, a series of inspections before the final bids are put to vote at an IOC session.
The host being decided seven years in advance as per the Olympic Charter.
Thomas Bach took over as the IOC president in 2013, he put in place the Olympic Agenda 2020.
Its a roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement, approved by the 2014 IOC session.
One part of the agenda dealt with a new process for host city selection, called the ‘new norm’.
What was the new approach?
The new process placed emphasis on three main aspects,
Flexibility
Sustainability
Cost-effectiveness
with the motto being ‘The Games adapt to the region, the region does not adapt to the Games’.
To ensure the sustainability of the infrastructure and to avoid any public backlash, hosts are encouraged as far as possible to use existing and temporary venues.
How has the process become more flexible
The IOC has said that the 2036 edition could be decided even as late as after 2030.
There is now a two-stage process
Continuous dialogue
Targeted dialogue
without any fixed deadlines, to assess, discuss and guide potential hosts.
The continuous dialogue is a non-committal stage not specific to any particular edition.
It is basically a discussion between the IOC’s Future Hosts Commission (FHC) and interested parties about the hosts’ vision for the Games, its purpose and long-term legacy.
The FHC includes athletes, international federations, national Olympic committees and the international paralympic committee.
Once there is seriousness in a bid to progress to the next level, it will enter the ‘targeted dialogue’ phase with the interested parties termed ‘preferred host’.
Sustainability and Cost-effectiveness?
In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of the infrastructure hosts are encouraged as far as possible to use existing and temporary venues.
Any new venues built must be in line with existing developmental plans and have a long-term justification irrespective of the Games.
All editions of the summer/winter/youth Olympic Games from 2030 onwards must also adhere to the IOC’s climate positive commitment.
As per the IOC’s claims, the focus on using existing and temporary venues has led to an 80% decrease in the bid budgets for the 2026 Winter Games compared to the 2018 and 2022 editions.
Sustainability and Cost-effectiveness?
Los Angeles has claimed to not build any new infrastructure for the 2028 Games
Paris has declared using 95% existing or temporary venues for 2024.
Potential bidders apart from India for the 2036 Games?
The other confirmed nations interested are
Mexico
Indonesia
Turkey
Poland
India is yet to decide the city/cities where the Games will be organized.
Mexico is the only one to have previously hosted the Games in 1968.
Other potential bidders include Egypt, Seoul, China, Qatar, Hungary, Italy, Denmark, Canada and Germany.
The largest gathering of athletes here has been around the 5,000.
Asian Games in Hangzhou saw 11,970 athletes participated
The Tokyo Olympics also had 11,420 athletes.
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