Durban Olympic bid: South Africa’s 2036 or 2040 push, with no cost estimate yet

The Durban Olympic bid is now South Africa’s official route to hosting the first Summer Games on African soil. On Thursday, the country’s Olympic committee named the east-coast city as its preferred candidate for either the 2036 or the 2040 Olympics and Paralympics. Officials could not yet say what it would cost.

The announcement came from Lwandile Simelane, acting president of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee. She said Durban would be the main candidate city but that the proposal would probably be a “multi-city bid”, with some events held elsewhere in the country. Johannesburg and Cape Town were also considered before Durban was chosen.

What the Durban Olympic bid is built on

The centrepiece would be the 56,000-seat Moses Mabhida Stadium, which was built for the 2010 football World Cup, the first held in Africa. Durban is South Africa’s third-largest city, home to around 4 million people on the subtropical Indian Ocean coast. Building a bid around an existing venue is a familiar way for candidates to signal restraint, and it sits awkwardly well with the city’s history of financial doubts.

A history of near-misses and cost worries

Durban was floated as an Olympic host more than a decade ago, after the World Cup, but no official bid materialised, largely because of concerns over cost. The city was also stripped of the 2022 Commonwealth Games because it could not provide the financial and other guarantees required. South Africa as a whole has tried before: Cape Town bid unsuccessfully for the 2004 Games.

Against that backdrop, the absence of a price tag stands out. Officials said they were not yet able to offer any estimate of what staging the Games might cost if the bid succeeds. Any credible Durban Olympic bid will eventually have to answer that question, particularly given the earlier Commonwealth Games withdrawal.

A crowded field and a long timetable

South Africa is one of seven countries bidding for the 2036 Games, alongside India, Qatar, South Korea, Germany, Hungary and Turkey. The International Olympic Committee set 31 October as the deadline for national committees to formally declare interest in 2036. Candidates can make virtual presentations to the IOC next month to begin the official process, and the IOC board is due to approve a shortlist in March. The host for 2036 is expected to be chosen in mid-2029.

Notably, South Africa is pitching for either 2036 or 2040, which suggests it may be prepared to wait if a rival is favoured for the earlier date. The sources do not say how the 2040 process would work.

Why it matters for Africa

If successful, South Africa would become the first African host of the Summer Games since the modern Olympics began in 1896. Momentum of a sort is building on the continent: the Youth Olympics open this weekend in Dakar, Senegal, which marks the first Olympic sports event ever held in Africa.

For now, the Durban Olympic bid is an announcement of intent rather than a funded plan. The coming months, from the IOC presentations to the March shortlist, will show whether South Africa can pair its historic pitch with the financial assurances that have eluded Durban before.

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File photo: Addington Beach, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (19892672743).jpg by South African Tourism from South Africa, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.