Hosting a Continental Tour athletics event next August in Bhubaneswar and bidding to stage the 2028 Under-20 World Championships are good signs even as India prepares to bid for the 2036 Olympics, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has said.
Successful staging of major events can help India ‘demonstrate a track record of sporting delivery at the international level’ which will be helpful for the country in its quest to become the 2036 Summer Games host, according to Coe, who has thrown his hat in the ring for the post of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president.
The AFI’s 2025 calendar includes a bronze-level Continental Tour event in the Odisha capital on August 10 next year. During Coe’s recent visit to India, the AFI also submitted a letter of intent to host the Under-20 World Championships.
“First of all, I am very grateful to Indian athletics that they are showing the ambition to stage more of our events. I think if any country has Olympic ambitions, I certainly know India does, being able to demonstrate a track record of sporting delivery at the international level can only be helpful,” the two-time Olympic 1500m champion said during a select roundtable interaction.
“Evaluation teams and the sport need the confidence that events that are going to be delivered at an Olympic level have been delivered at a world championships or global-competition level. That track record is important for any city that is wanting to present their credentials for delivering a very complicated and complex sporting event. There is nothing more complex than the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Coe was the chair of the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.
Talking about the country’s chances of hosting big international events, Coe said: “India has some very important assets, it has a young population, a vibrant commercial market for sport and you have political will and recognition from the prime minister down that sports plays an essential role in nation-building and creating healthy communities, mentally and physically.”
India could host more international track and field events over the next few years with the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) in discussion with World Athletics about relay and road events. “AFI is ambitious, they have talked about relays and they have talked about world road championships. Their focus is more on the track than it is on the road. I never take lightly the ambition of a member federation that wants to stage our world championship events. I have received, on my recent visit to the Indian athletics federation, a letter of intent to stage the under-20 world championships which is good news and that now sits with our bidding team alongside other bids,” Coe added.
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