4 min learnNew DelhiMar 20, 2026 12:30 AM IST
5 months in the past, in a lift to its aspirations of staging the 2036 Olympics, India have been named hosts for the centenary Commonwealth Video games to be held in Ahmedabad. Thursday marked one other win for India when World Athletics president Sebastian Coe named Bhubaneswar because the host metropolis for the 2028 version of the World Indoor Championships.
Whereas India’s Summer time Video games’ bid will go up towards Qatar, the hosts of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, internet hosting the CWG in Ahmedabad and the World Indoors in Bhubaneswar can be a chance to boost credentials as hosts of big-ticket occasions.
The bid to host the indoor championships was submitted by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) and bought the go-ahead from the World Athletics Council throughout a media briefing forward of the 2026 championships in Poland, which begins in Torun, Poland, on Friday. Members of the World Athletics Council inspected Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Indoor Stadium, the nation’s solely indoor competitors facility which was accomplished in March 2024.
The AFI has additionally bid for the 2028 Asian Indoor Championships in addition to subsequent 12 months’s Asian Relay Championships. Chandigarh is the proposed venue for the relay championships. A delegation of the Asian Athletics Affiliation visited Bhubaneshwar to evaluate the Kalinga Indoor Stadium within the first week of March.
“All main championships that come to India previous to the Olympics assist India to get able to host the Olympics and assist Indian athletes get extra publicity by competing towards a few of the greatest on this planet. India is able to internet hosting the Olympics, however these occasions will present that we’re prepared,” Anju Bobby George, the senior vice-president of the AFI, informed this paper.
Sports activities minister Mansukh Mandaviya posted on X: “The world is coming to India! Delighted to be taught that Bhubaneswar, Odisha will host the 2028 World Athletics Indoor Championships.”
Bhubaneswar has hosted main observe and area occasions earlier. The 2017 Asian Athletics Championships was additionally held on the Kalinga Stadium as was the World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze Stage Competitors final 12 months.
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“Indian athletes have been making impression on the world degree,” AFI president Bahadur Singh Sagoo stated in an announcement.
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Bagging the internet hosting rights of the World Indoors is a part of India’s plan to conduct a slew of worldwide multi-disciplinary occasions and main continental tournaments throughout Olympic sports activities. An Indian delegation which met the highest brass of the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne in July confirmed that Ahmedabad is the nation’s option to stage ‘a future version’ of the Olympics.
The Veer Savarkar Sports activities advanced in Naranpura, constructed at a price of Rs 820 crore, is proposed as one of many venues for the 2030 Commonwealth Video games, together with the under-construction Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports activities Enclave, which may also home the present Narendra Modi cricket stadium. Earlier than internet hosting the Asian Aquatics Championships in September final 12 months, the Savarkar Sports activities Advanced was the venue for the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships in August. Within the Gujarat state funds introduced final month, Rs 500 crore was allotted to make Ahmedabad an Olympics-ready metropolis.
Qatar introduced its bid for the 2036 Olympics in July final 12 months. India may also face competitors from Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary and Germany, which needs to have fun the a hundredth anniversary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Aside from internet hosting the FIFA World Cup 4 years in the past, Qatar hosted the Asian Video games in 2006. The 2030 version of the Asiad may also be held in that nation.
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In December 2024, Coe – who had thrown his hat within the ring to grow to be IOC president – had stated that profitable staging of main occasions might help India ‘display a observe report of sporting supply on the worldwide degree’ which can be useful for the nation in its quest to grow to be the 2036 Summer time Video games host.
“To begin with, I’m very grateful to Indian athletics that they’re exhibiting the ambition to stage extra of our occasions. I believe if any nation has Olympic ambitions, I definitely know India does, with the ability to display a observe report of sporting supply on the worldwide degree can solely be useful,” Coe, a two-time Olympic 1500m champion, had stated.
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