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IOC President Thomas Bach has encouraged African countries to express interest in hosting the Olympic Games from 2036 onwards, emphasising the continent's potential and the IOC's reforms to make hosting more affordable.
The International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has urged African countries to express their interest in hosting the Olympic Games from 2036 onwards.
The outgoing president, speaking during a press conference held at the Villa Rosa Kempinski resort in Nairobi, Kenya on Thursday, October 24, explained that the continent needs to be proactive in declaring interest so that the IOC can consider them in upcoming events.
The 2028 and 2032 Olympic Games will be held in Los Angeles and Brisbane respectively but from then, hosts are yet to be announced. He explained that they are also considering countries outside of the Group of Twenty (G20) which comprises 19 countries including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, United Kingdom and United States and two regional bodies, the European Union and the African Union.
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“In order to have the Games in Africa, an African country must show interest in organising the games and a number of African countries are in a position to organise the event after all the reforms that we have undertaken,” Thomas Bach said.
“You can ask for the 2036 games and the countries that have submitted their papers are not even from the G20 countries. There are many opportunities because after these reforms,” he added.
He explained that the IOC is also looking to develop host countries in terms of infrastructure and making the budgets affordable so that the National Olympic Committee’s don’t feel the pressures of hosting the games.
Thomas Bach also pointed out that their new resolutions also saw Senegal being granted the rights to host the 2026 Dakar Youth Olympic Games, explaining that it was a deliberate move.
“We are taking the games towards a long-term development plans of the city, region or ac country and this makes the games affordable and it brings out a positive economic success and we are now in a position where we don’t speak about the cost of the games but we are focused on the investment that helps boost the status of the community,” Thomas Bach said.
“I can only encourage Africa to gain some confidence, come up and express interest in a country or city and in the meantime, I think Africa can be already proud because we have already allocated the Youth 2026 Games to Africa and this was our commitment.”
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