The Insanity of India Bidding to Host the Olympics
LMAO
Can we talk about the Summer of ‘25? It’s been a great summer, one of my all-time favourites. Deserves a book to itself. Maybe even a Netflix documentary.
The story starts from Friday, 1st August. On 1st August, a bunch of Indian Super League clubs informed their playing and non-playing staff that all operations have been indefinitely suspended. This suspension comes after the Indian Super League itself got suspended, because the league’s organising body and Indian football’s governing body couldn’t see eye to eye on future finances. That’s India’s primary football competition, stalled. Sunil Chhetri and Sandeep Jhingan have been left to browse Netflix, as the Indian men’s football team vibes out at 133rd position in the FIFA rankings.
Then, on 21st July, India secured its first-ever medal - a bronze - in the mixed team badminton event at the World University Games in Germany. But, soon after, Alisha Khan, one of the players, publicly alleged that only 6 out of 12 squad members were allowed to compete in the event because team managers BV Rao and Rashmi Ramachandra failed to submit the full list of players during the official managers’ meeting with tournament authorities.
In general, the summer’s given a story every day. You wake up, open the newspapers, and find something that blows your mind. Here’s a sample.
On 9th July, the Gambhira Bridge over the Mahisagar River in Vadodara, Gujarat collapsed during morning traffic, killing at least 21 people and plunging vehicles into the river. On 2nd July, the Mahal Road in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh - built at a cost of ₹4 crore - caved in for the seventh time in two weeks since opening to the public. On 18th June, the Harang Bridge over Assam’s Harang River collapsed under two overloaded limestone trucks during heavy rain, severing Cachar district’s link to Tripura and Mizoram. On 16th June, a 73-year-old pedestrian bridge over the Indrayani River in Pune’s Maval tehsil buckled under roughly 100 tourists, killing four and injuring fifty. On 12th June, two massive I-girders at Chennai Metro Rail Phase II’s Ramapuram/Manapakkam site collapsed onto the road below, killing a motorcyclist. And, on 4th June, 11 fans of Royal Challengers Bengaluru died in a completely avoidable crowd crush at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Under this air, a delegation from the Indian Olympic Association went to Lausanne and presented a whole-hearted pitch to bring the 2036 Summer Olympics to Ahmedabad. I don’t know about you, but I laughed while reading about it, and I laughed while typing it for you.
The kind folks at Newslaundry published my essay about why India should not even think of the Olympics. During the drafting process, I plucked many leaves from Sharda Ugra’s written work, had the pleasure of a 30-minute phone conversation with her, and found a bunch of nuggets from Nandan Kamath’s lovely book, Boundary Lab. There is also a snippet from the excellent Mihir Vasavda. If Indian sport interests you, these are your go-to writers.
Quoting some bits from the essay.
“The International Olympic Committee’s response was curt and crisp. An unnamed source informed The Indian Express that the committee asked India to first settle its own issues, like those of governance, a rampant doping problem, and India’s poor show at Olympics games.
“It has been communicated very candidly that while India can continue preparing for its bid to host future Olympics, the country has to address these issues first. It has been made clear to us that the IOA must get its house in order before serious talks regarding hosting the Olympics take place. That’s the starting point,” the official told The Indian Express.
In short, fix your house before inviting guests.”
About a month back, I visited the Kanteerava Stadium in Bangalore for the Neeraj Chopra Classic. It was India’s first ever World Athletics gold tier event. Chopra had overseen everything with hawk eyes, like a new parent would. 15000 people turned up; the press loved it; the vibes were great.
I was there with my friend M and his little son, K. For everything great about the event, the nearest washroom for our stand was two long, sloping floors down. And there was no access to water unless you walked all the way down, below the stand, and stood in line at the food stalls. In India, the bar for infrastructure is so low that this counts as acceptable.
Apparently, the plans for hosting the Olympics had been moving in rapid speed since the Tokyo Olympics of 2021 began winding down. Sharda Ugra writes here about the intricacies of the process, but some bits stood out.
“By October 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was selling it to the International Olympic Committee’s annual meeting in Mumbai: “India will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to organize the Olympics in 2036. This is the age-old dream of 140 crore Indians.”
These ambitions were given the licence to cruise on an eight-lane highway. In January 2024, the Gujarat government formed a company and earmarked Rs 6,000 crore to build six sports complexes to host the 2036 Summer Olympic Games. The plan included building a 350-acre sports complex – a constellation of slick facilities wrapped around the magnetic nucleus of Indian sport that is the 1,30,000-seater Narendra Modi cricket stadium.”
There is a lot more in the essay. Some infuriating - because wtf are they thinking - hilarious, and utterly insane. As we speak, there is a cash grab going on in Ahmedabad from the land bought for the Olympics. Indian sport is an incredible TV show.
I sometimes feel it must be quite easy to be a stand-up comic in India. The satire comes written.
We could host the obstacle race pretty much anywhere though.
I'm stuck somewhere between a chuckle and a breakdown.