Qatar Creates Bid Committee With Eye on Hosting 2036 Olympic Games
News and notes around the Olympic movement
Posted On: July 23, 2025 By :The Qatar Olympic Committee on Wednesday announced the creation of a bid committee for the 2036 Olympics and Paralympic Games, which would come 14 years after it staged the World Cup.
It’s the latest attempt by the Middle Eastern country to host the Summer Games, after Doha was overlooked by the International Olympic Committee in favor of Brisbane for the 2032 Olympics.
The committee didn’t address when in 2036 it would propose to host the Games. The World Cup had to be held in November and December because of the extreme heat in the region. The IOC prefers the traditional July-August slot.
The Qatari committee said the country “has firmly established itself as a global hub for major international sporting events … (and) has successfully hosted numerous world championships across multiple disciplines and invested in world-class infrastructure that reflects the country’s long-term commitment to excellence and sustainability in sport.”
Other confirmed 2036 bids include Ahmedabad in India, Nusantara in Indonesia, North Jeolla in South Korea and Santiago in Chile.
Until recently, the IOC’s future host process was entirely in the hands of the Future Host Commission. New IOC President Kirsty Coventry said that a review of the process will be undertaken because “members want to be engaged more in the process.”
When Los Angeles was awarded the 2028 Games that was 11 years in advance; Brisbane 2032 was awarded 11 years in advance as well while the 2034 Winter Games in Salt Lake City awarded was nine years in advance. By comparison, the 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps was awarded with six years’ notice.
“The way we used to do things is not where we want to go,” Coventry said. “There’s been some very good reforms to get the future hosts and the selection of host cities to date. But (members) felt that they wanted to be included in the process a little bit more and really be able to better understand the process. If you’re not sitting on the Future Host Commission you’re obviously not getting as much information and it’s such an important part of what we do and members get asked a lot in their own home countries what’s happening, where it is going, that they want to better educate themselves.”
Brisbane 2032 on Track … For Now
Andrew Liveris is happy with the progress of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics but concedes organizers have little wiggle room if they experience delays while implementing the plans they have been working on for the last three years.
Brisbane won hosting rights in 2021 only for political wrangling over the venues to delay the decision on the final plans until March this year.
“The venues got a lot of noise,” Liveris, president of the Brisbane Organizing Committee for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, told Reuters this week. “The political body was disagreeing on a couple of very big ones and that didn’t help, but they got that out of the way and frankly, seven years to go, we have our plans, and I’m happy with where we are …
“Seven years is enough time, but we don’t have a lot of wiggle room.”
Liveris is cautious about what impact global economic changes and trends over the next few years might have on the budgets and timelines for the main venue construction projects.
“With 84% of our venues being existing or temporary, we’re mostly in good shape,” he added. “But the 16% includes the stadium, includes the aquatic centre, it includes a few very important venues. That would be the biggest challenge we have.”
Anti-Corruption Policy Breached Before World Triathlon Election
World Triathlon executive board member Liber Garcia breached the governing body’s anti-bribery and anti-corruption policy in the lead-up to its 2024 presidential election, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled in a verdict published on Tuesday.
Antonio Fernandez Arimany won the election to succeed fellow Spaniard Marisol Casado as president. Michelle Cooper, the former president of Australia’s triathlon governing body who ran for the presidency of the global ruling body, lodged a complaint last year alleging election misconduct.
Uruguayan Garcia, president of Americas Triathlon, was given a warning as the CAS partially upheld a March 2025 decision by the World Triathlon Tribunal and said a predetermined “favorites list” influenced the outcome of the elections and that some candidates were encouraged to withdraw.
The verdict comes less than two weeks after the publication of a wide-ranging report on the current state and future of triathlon, which has faced problems due to differing governing bodies, changing formats and struggles for commercial and TV backing.
The report was presented during the Events Summit in Hamburg, marking a pivotal moment for the future of the sport. Among the findings in the report was that in the United States, participation has dropped by an estimated 40% in the past 15 years and the global triathlon landscape is highly fragmented.
The report cites a $300,000 price tag for putting on a World Cup event “with nearly a third going to fees, officials, anti-doping and sanctioning.” USA Triathlon is praised as being “one of the few major national federations that operates on a fully sustainable business model based entirely on private funding.”
World Athletics Publishes ‘Athletics for a Better World Standard’ Report
World Athletics has released its inaugural year review of the Athletics for a Better World Standard, the system that evaluates, measures and scores an event’s achievement in sustainable delivery. The ABW Standard was implemented in January 2024, when sustainability reporting became an annual or bi-annual requirement for most global elite competitions managed or awarded by World Athletics.
The review examined reports submitted by 102 events from 36 countries across each of World Athletics’ six continental areas, spotlighting best practices, noting trends and identifying strengths and weaknesses in sustainable event delivery. It then presented some next steps to address some of the challenges the review identified.
“While sustainable delivery was already ‘business as usual’ for many events, it was an entirely new delivery component for even more,” said World Athletics President Sebastian Coe. “We knew from experience and discussions with organisers that sustainability planning and reporting does require an allocation of additional time, resources and expertise. And we know that poses organisational challenges across our events, which will need time to change.”
The World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24 and the Oslo Bislett Games achieved platinum, and the Hypo-Meeting combined events meeting in Götzis, Austria, and the Weltklasse Zurich achieved gold. Four other events including the Boston Marathon reached silver, five bronze and another 35 achieved Recognised Event status including the New York City Marathon, Chicago Marathon and Twin Cities Marathon in Minnesota.
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