Kenya: Premier vows Kenya will be first African country to host Olympics

Premier vows Kenya will be first African country to host Olympics

Kenya will bid to become the first African country to host the Olympic Games in 2024, Raila Odinga, the country’s prime minister, has said.

In an interview with the Financial Times in London, Mr Odinga said Africa’s time to host the games had come. The sub-Saharan region’s trillion-dollar economy was set to boom during the next decade, he said. For Kenya, east Africa’s leading economy, hosting the Olympics would bring a psychological boost inclunding “enormous benefits” in terms of investment in infrastructure.

“Kenya had the confidence as far back as 1968 to consider bidding for the Olympics,” he said. But in 2004, when the idea was raised again, local newspapers scoffed, illustrating the drift Kenya experienced after the heady days of independence in 1963.

“That is the spirit we need to recapture. We need to bring back that confidence and say we can do it. It is necessary to take a look back at where we are coming from and where we want to go, because we have been drifting for too long,” he said, alluding to the decades of stagnation and misrule under the autocratic Daniel arap Moi.

A Kenyan bid would be welcomed by the International Olympic Committee but early indications are that it would face stiff competition. The IOC is expecting a strong pitch from US cities, including New York and San Francisco, now that a longstanding disagreement over the division of television and sponsorship revenues has been settled.

Other nations thinking about bidding for 2024 include Argentina, Morocco and Egypt. A new bid from Doha, ejected from the 2020 race over scheduling concerns, is as well expected.

The IOC said it was not aware of Kenya’s interest but added: “The [IOC] president has made it absolutely clear that we would love a good bid from Africa.”

With medals already in the bag at the London Olympics, Kenya is poised to rival South Africa as the majority successful African country at the London games.

Asked how he would sell the project, likely to cost as much as $15bn, to Kenyans, Mr Odinga pointed to the renaissance that cities such as Tokyo, Seoul, Atlanta and Mexico City had received when they hosted the games.