Getting to host 2028 World Indoor Athletics part of India’s 2036 Olympics ambition

The AFI has also bid for the 2028 Asian Indoor Championships as well as next year’s Asian Relay Championships. Chandigarh is the proposed venue for the relay championships. A delegation of the Asian Athletics Association visited Bhubaneshwar to review the Kalinga Indoor Stadium in the first week of March.

“All major championships that come to India prior to the Olympics help India to get ready to host the Olympics and help Indian athletes get more exposure by competing against some of the best in the world. India is capable of hosting the Olympics, but these events will show that we are ready,” Anju Bobby George, the senior vice-president of the AFI, told this paper.

Sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya posted on X: “The world is coming to India! Delighted to learn that Bhubaneswar, Odisha will host the 2028 World Athletics Indoor Championships.”

Bhubaneswar has hosted major track and field events earlier. The 2017 Asian Athletics Championships was also held at the Kalinga Stadium as was the World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze Level Competition last year.

“Indian athletes have been making a good impression at the global level,” AFI president Bahadur Singh Sagoo said in a statement.

Bigger picture

Bagging the hosting rights of the World Indoors is part of India’s plan to conduct a slew of international multi-disciplinary events and major continental tournaments across Olympic sports. An Indian delegation which met the top brass of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne in July confirmed that Ahmedabad is the country’s choice to stage ‘a future edition’ of the Olympics.

The Veer Savarkar Sports complex in Naranpura, built at a cost of Rs 820 crore, is proposed as one of the venues for the 2030 Commonwealth Games, along with the under-construction Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports Enclave, which will also house the existing Narendra Modi cricket stadium. Before hosting the Asian Aquatics Championships in September last year, the Savarkar Sports Complex was the venue for the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships in August. In the Gujarat state budget presented last month, Rs 500 crore was allotted to make Ahmedabad an Olympics-ready city.

Qatar announced its bid for the 2036 Olympics in July last year. India will also face competition from Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary and Germany, which wants to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Apart from hosting the FIFA World Cup four years ago, Qatar hosted the Asian Games in 2006. The 2030 edition of the Asiad will also be held in that country.

In December 2024, Coe – who had thrown his hat in the ring to become IOC president – had said that 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.

“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,” Coe, a two-time Olympic 1500m champion, had said.