No Budget Is Too Big For Medals: Why India's 2036 Olympics Hosting Dream Is Need Of The Hour
While many will continue to argue that hosting the Olympics is a financial debt those exact arguments are to be pitted against why India should host the Olympics.
India, the world's most populated country, finished 71st in the medals tally of the Paris Olympics 2024 that concluded last month. The breakdown of the six medals India managed to clinch at the world's biggest sports showed 5 bronze and a silver.
Even Pakistan, a comparison against whom often leads to a skewed evaluation of India's ability and potential, finished ahead of India at 62nd place — courtesy of Arshad Nadeem's Olympic-record-breaking throw in the Men's Javelin throw final. India had sent a 117-member Indian contingent to the French capital and had expected to better their tally performance after their best-ever finish at the Tokyo Olympics. With so much expectation and hopes pinned, it can be termed as underwhelming.
However, India is far better than someone might conceive it to be after a mere glimpse at the medals tally. Quite a few of their athletes missed medal opportunities by a whisker, a few lost to opponents who had boasted a much better record against all their careers, and even world champions did not come close to medal contentions.
Amid all this, India has shown interest in hosting the Olympic Games in 2036. This is important because it could be a massive boost to not only India's sporting ecosystem but also a chance to flex muscles in the global sporting world. After all, the country is far more than that just six medals, and what better way to showcase sporting supremacy than to get hold of the hosting rights of the biggest sports tournament on the planet and let the world experience Indian hospitality.
While many will continue to argue that hosting the Olympics is a financial debt, those exact arguments can be pitted against why India should host the Olympics.
India's Growth Rate
Even though here is a school of thought that reckons India should not host the Olympic Games as it would do them more harm than good, it might not exactly be accurate. For beginners, India's economy has been growing at an impressive rate, quicker than all market estimates. There has been a healthy 8.14% year-on-year (YoY) in the 2023-2024 fiscal year despite several global uncertainties, as per a research published in August 2024 by Deloitte. India not only has the means but also the appetite to grow further and prosper. And a sporting global event is just another way to show the world that the nation is a major economic force to reckon with.
Rate Of Urbanisation
India will no longer be all about villages by 2036. It's certainly not all about that in 2024 either, but things are going to change much more in another 12 years. With the country's rapid rate of urbanisation, about 40% of the total population of the country is expected to be living in towns and cities by 2036 — the year India aims to host the Olympic Games — as forecast in an Economic Times (ET) report from earlier this year. What that means in essence is that a basic infrastructure will already be in place for a new urbanised India, and a further push as an Olympic host can only accelerate the process of development.
Why Not India?
There have been several hosts of sporting events as big in stature and as challenging to host as the Olympics. The latest example is Qatar, which hosted a football World Cup in November-December — a scenario previously unimaginable due to the Middle Eastern weather conditions. Despite controversies, the Qatar FIFA World Cup was largely successful, primarily due to the compelling on-field action. Some may call it sportswashing.
Think back to 2010, and "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)" instantly echoes in the minds of all football fans. The official 2010 FIFA World Cup song has garnered over 4 billion views on YouTube. Questions were raised then too, especially with the World Cup costing a hefty US$3 billion at a time when social needs like housing, hospitals, water, and electricity were pressing concerns in the country — a point that could be argued in India's bid as well.
However, Danny Jordaan, who chaired the FIFA World Cup 2010 organizing committee, believes the money was well spent.
"We changed the negative perception about the country, and tourism has flourished since," said Jordaan, now president of the South African Football Association, in a Reuters report.
Going further back, China boldly hosted the 2008 Olympics, its first ever. Despite calls for a boycott due to the country's human rights record, similar to those surrounding the Qatar FIFA World Cup, the event proceeded and managed to capture global attention for positive reasons.
In his book "Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations", historian Zheng Wang writes: "Hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics was a symbol of China’s rejuvenation."
He adds: "Through the extravagant opening ceremony, the Chinese government showcased China’s historical glory and new achievements... indisputable proof that China had finally ‘made it’."
India seems to be going through a similar phase, with generations of school kids and college graduates reading in textbooks that it is a "developing" country.
Will pulling off an Olympic Games on their soil then mean that India have finally come to parity with those "developed" nations?
While these countries certainly announced their coming of age by hosting the World Cup, another nation that hosted two mega sporting events back-to-back is Brazil in South America. In 2014, Brazil hosted the FIFA World Cup, followed by the Summer Olympic Games in 2016. The Brazilian national government fully supported both bidding campaigns, with then-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva backing the initiative, ensuring its success. It was a massive display of power, and Brazil did see some returns, particularly in terms of increased tourism and enhanced national "branding".
Sporting Infra
Billions of dollars could be a massive figure with the exact cost of the Olympics in India difficult to predict as the government is not going ahead with Delhi as the host city, which has hosted the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games in the past and has some sort of an infrastructure already in place.
In Ahmedabad, the cost could increase but the result also be a city with a state-of-the-art infrastructure, worthy in comparison to some of the cities that currently come to our mind when one thinks of an Olympic host city — the values of sustainaibility, development plans which are in alignment with the overall goals of the Olympic movement as well as a region where all the diverse Olympic disciplines can be accomodated and a robust public transport system.
It will all be worth it with India also looking to push some of its native games like Kabaddi, cricket and chess if they host the Olympics and pull off their best-ever performance in the home Summer Games. Once done, the Olympic infrastructure will already be in place which would be used for training of athletes and pay dividends years after the main event has already taken place.
Moreover, if a nation continues to think about all that is required to pull an event of such a scale, it may always seem overwhelming. If a 3 trillion dollar economy growing at pace cannot host the Olympics, who else can?
[Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs, and views expressed by the various authors and forum participants on this website are personal.]
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