India will not bid for 2024 Olympics, PM tells IOC boss

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 27

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach has put an end to the speculation that India might bid for 2024 Olympics after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Monday.

Soon after the meeting, which he described as “excellent”, at Modi’s 7, Race Course Road, residence, the IOC chief informed that India is not bidding for 2024 Summer Games as the Prime Minister did not propose it.

“We were aware of the speculation. Quite frankly, we were a little bit surprised about this speculation because we thought it may be too quick for India to host the Olympics in 2024. We checked with the PM about it and he said he wants to be well-prepared. But he is seriously looking into the Olympic candidature.

“The PM also said that launching a successful bid for 2024 from now till the September 15 deadline may be difficult. We will stay in contact for the future, but for 2024, we shared the same opinion that it would be too early,” Bach told reporters at the end of his whirlwind 24-hour trip to India for the first time after being elected as IOC chief in 2013.

Bach was of the view that it would be too soon for India to host a successful Games as the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) came out of suspension only last year.

“I am happy that India came out of suspension last year, but the IOA has to find its feet. After my discussion with the IOA officials in the morning, it gave me the impression that the IOA still needs to find ways on how to support athletes and make India’s sporting future a success. They should focus on athletes and their good results at international events. For now, India needs to build its athletes, find unity among itself, so that you can field a strong team at the 2016 Rio Olympics,” he said.

Despite being the world’s second most populous nation, India has a poor record in the Olympics. Shooter Abhinav Bindra, who won gold in 2008 in the 10-metre air rifle event, remains the country’s only individual champion.

Boston, Hamburg and Rome have already launched their bids for the 2024 Games, while Paris is expected to join them before the mid-September deadline. The host city will be selected in 2017.

‘Sleeping giant’

Bach, a gold medallist in fencing in the 1976 Montreal Games, said he and Modi agreed that India is a “sleeping giant” which needs to be woken up soon and that the immediate focus should be on athletes performing better in the Olympics.

“India is a sleeping giant and, we at length, discussed how to wake it up. The PM was clear in his thought that he would like to use his authority and dynamism to wake this giant up and the IOC is more than willing to assist in this because we think that 1.2 billion people with about 80 million young people have a huge potential. India could become a powerhouse in sports.”

As reported by The Tribune earlier, a tripartite agreement was also signed between the Government of India, IOC and IOA for the development of Indian sports. “The IOC, in the framework of its international assistance programme, will be committing itself to support sport in India. We will be offering every kind of assistance be it the coaching, sports technology, training and funding.”

Earlier in the day, Bach had separate meetings with the top brass of the IOA and the Sports Ministry at the hotel he is staying in besides attending a lunch hosted by Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. IOA officials had told Bach about their opposition to the Sports Bill and the growing interference of the government. Bach said that he raised the issue with the PM.

“We mentioned the issue of autonomy and to protect the National Olympic Committee. We believe that good governance and autonomy are just two sides of the same coin. We expressed our opinion to the PM and he also felt the same.”