India confident about 2036 Olympics bid despite IOC's revamped host selection process: 'We can start building...'

Indian Olympic Association (IOA) remains fully confident of measuring up to the revamped Olympic host selection process unveiled by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently. The Indian association has said that it is already reaching out to the IOC to build its case.

India has put forward a bid to host the 2036 Olympics with confirmed competition from Turkey, South Africa, Qatar and Chile. IOA had submitted the letter of intent in 2024 to host the prestigious Summer Games in Ahmedabad. However, IOC had paused the host selection process to reassess the same.

The new details of the process were released recently but Indian authorities remain confident of clearing it.

India building it's case

IOC's new guidelines of the host selection process have inserted a Strategic Dialogue phase in between the Continuous Dialogue and the final Targetted Dialogue with interested bidders. The candidate nations will need to provide "core financial guarantees" among other requirements under this phase.

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Criteria such as cost control, clear timelines for completion of project milestones among other aspects will also have to be met by the interested parties.

India are currently in the first phase after which the newly introduced Strategic Dialogue phase is expected to begin in 2027. The Targetted Dialogue phase will begin in 2028. The executive committee of IOC will then select preferred hosts "put forward for election by the IOC Session to become the host of the 2036 Olympic Games." The process is expected to be completed by mid-2029.

Indian authorities have already started reaching out to the IOC which is currently led by Kirsty Coventry.

"We cannot reach out to IOC members individually at a governmental level but there are various other channels through which we can start building our case," PTI quoted a well-placed source as saying.

India's negotiations will be led by the Indian Olympic Association in collaboration with the Gujarat government.