South Africa names Durban as its candidate city for the 2036 or 2040 Olympic bid

A first bid from Africa

South Africa's national Olympic committee has picked Durban as the main candidate city for the 2036 or 2040 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. The announcement came on Thursday, 29 October, when acting SASCOC president Lwandile Simelane said Durban would lead the bid, which would probably be a 'multi-city bid' with some events staged elsewhere. Johannesburg and Cape Town were also considered before Durban was preferred. If the bid succeeds, the Games would be the first held on the African continent.

Seven bidders and a tight calendar

For 2036, South Africa faces Germany (Munich), India (Ahmedabad), South Korea (the Jeonbuk region), Turkey (Istanbul), Hungary (Budapest) and Qatar (Doha). The IOC set 31 October as the deadline for national Olympic committees to formally declare interest in the 2036 Games. SASCOC plans to present its project to the IOC's Future Host Commission in November, and feasibility studies are expected to finish in March 2027. The IOC is expected to choose the 2036 host in mid-2029.

Cost concerns and past setbacks

Officials said on Thursday they could not yet give any estimate of what staging the Games might cost. Durban was discussed as a possible host more than a decade ago, after South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup, but no official bid followed, largely because of cost concerns. Bayerischer Rundfunk reports that Durban lost the 2022 Commonwealth Games in 2017 after the required financial guarantees could not be given. To limit spending, South Africa intends to use many existing sports venues, and the stadium built for the 2010 World Cup is planned as the Olympic stadium, according to tagesschau.

Durban and the climate for the Games

Tagesschau describes Durban as a port city on the Indian Ocean coast with nearly four million inhabitants including its metropolitan region, a popular holiday destination known for its surf scene. The Games would fall in the South African winter, with daytime temperatures of around 20 degrees and mostly sunny, dry weather. The city's organisers said Durban was ready for the challenge and would not be intimidated by rivals, and they argued that hosting could create jobs and economic opportunities in the region.

Munich's parallel bid

Germany's DOSB chose Munich at the end of September as its candidate for 2036, 2040 and 2044, after Hamburg dropped out following a referendum and Berlin withdrew two days before the DOSB decision. Munich narrowly beat the Cologne-Rhine-Ruhr region in the final vote. Munich mayor Dominik Krause, a Green politician, announced a staff unit to coordinate the work and expects further bid costs of '18 to 20 million' euros until the 2036 award, expected in 2029. The city alone spent about seven million euros on the national bid, and the costs are to be shared by the federal government, the state of Bavaria, the city and the DOSB, with a joint company planned for March. Munich must present its concept to the IOC in November, and in March the IOC will decide which bidders enter its strategic dialogue, with the number of bidders expected to shrink.