At the Paris Olympics, cities and countries were discreetly making their case to host in 2036

Sport

At the Paris Olympics, cities and countries were discreetly making their case to host in 2036

2024-08-12 02:38 Last Updated At：02:41

PARIS (AP) — If historic waterway settings are the new must-have accessory for Olympic host cities, then Istanbul’s mayor wants the IOC to know his city has one.

If the key to getting the 2036 Summer Games is having hosted world championships in top-tier Olympic sports, then Qatar can point to its track record over the past decade.

If winning over the International Olympic Committee is about ambition, finance and relationship-building, then India’s project backed by the Ambani family and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is well placed.

Saudi Arabia is following a similar path and in Paris sealed an Esports Olympic Games hosting deal with the IOC for 12 years, beyond the next Summer Games that is available to be awarded.

If the 2036 Olympics must go to Asia — a logical option to follow Paris, Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032 — then Indonesia will push its case as a fast-emerging economy of 280 million people.

In Paris, interested parties discreetly made their case for hosting the Olympics in a process run by the IOC that is now more discreet, less obviously a campaign and which critics say is too opaque. It can end with a winner far quicker than the old way of holding a multi-candidate vote seven years before the Games open. Brisbane outpaced Qatar to get the 2032 award 11 years in advance.

If just one thing is clear, the 2036 Olympics host will be known long before 2029 and strongly shaped by the high bar Paris has set.

“I mostly focus on what the IOC expects, what they dream of, what the world wants to see,” Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu told The Associated Press in an interview in Paris. “Personally, I’m not really interested to know what city is the competitor.”

The IOC has said it has a “double-digit” number of cities or countries in talks, maybe informal at this stage, about their interest in hosting a future Summer Games which can be later than 2036.

Still, those that hosted hospitality houses in Paris over the past two weeks were showing clear intent.

At the opening of India House on July 27, IOC member Nita Ambani said hosting an Olympics was “a dream that belongs to 1.4 billion Indians.”

The Ambani family, India’s richest and owners of the Reliance Industries conglomerate, now has a global reputation for lavish hosting. Celebrations over several months for their son Anant’s wedding in Mumbai drew world leaders, A-list performers and several IOC members who ultimately vote to confirm Games hosts.

Qatar did not have a public hospitality venue, though the ruling Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, was in Paris for meetings of the IOC of which he has been a member since 2002, and the opening ceremony.

Istanbul House opened in the final week of the Paris Olympics, reminding visitors the city will host the 2027 European Games, a kind of audition project.

“You are also competing with the past experiences of Olympic Games,” İmamoğlu said in translated comments. “You need to do better than what has been done in the past.”

What Paris has done is show an IOC focused on sustainability that the Olympics can be staged without building white elephant venues that stand long after the closing ceremony as a reminder of wasted taxpayer costs.

Los Angeles in 2028 will go further using only already existing or temporary venues. This goal is met by taking two sports that could not be staged locally — softball and canoe slalom — about 1,300 miles (2,000 kilometers) east to Oklahoma City.

Indonesia hopes to impress Olympic evaluators by having hosted the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang. The Asian Games has more sports and athletes than the Olympics, and Saudi Arabia does not host it until 2034, in Riyadh. Qatar did in 2006 in Doha and will again in 2030.

“Indonesia has the infrastructure, the ambition and the willingness to do it,” Indonesia’s team leader at the Paris Olympics, Anindya Bakrie, said.

When Indonesia would not host Israel games at the Under-20 World Cup in men’s soccer last year, FIFA moved the tournament from the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation just weeks before it opened.

“By saying that we want to bid for 2036, it also means that we know that we have to deal with the issue. If we do it right,” Bakrie said, “we have enough time to educate the public.”

And if Istanbul is to win — in 2036 or 2040 — why not another athlete parade at an opening ceremony by the Bosphorus strait that connects Europe and Asia?

“If you have the scenario, the right choreography, it can be very formidable,” İmamoğlu said. “You can dream of having 500,000 people watching the inauguration in such a setting.”

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

An American activist killed by Israeli fire is buried in Turkey as Israel strikes Gaza

2024-09-14 22:28 Last Updated At：22:31

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) — A Turkish-American activist who was killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank was laid to rest on Saturday in her hometown in Turkey with thousands lining the streets and anti-Israeli feelings in the country rising from a conflict that threatens to spread across the region.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old woman from Seattle, was shot dead Sept. 6 by an Israeli soldier during a demonstration against Israeli West Bank settlements, according to an Israeli protester who witnessed the shooting.

Thousands of people lined the streets in the Turkish coastal town of Didim on the Aegean Sea, as Eygi was buried in a coffin draped in a Turkish flag, which was taken from her family home. A portrait of her wearing her graduation gown was propped against the coffin as people paid their respects.

Her body was earlier brought from a hospital to her family home and Didim’s Central Mosque.

Turkey’s condemned the killing and announced it will conduct its own investigation into her death. “We are not going to leave our daughter’s blood on the ground and we demand responsibility and accountability for this murder,” Numan Kurtulmus, the speaker of Turkey’s parliament told mourners at the funeral.

On Friday, an autopsy had been carried out at Izmir Forensic Medicine Institute. Kurtulmus said the examination showed Eygi was hit by a round that struck her in the back of the head below her left ear.

The Israeli military said Tuesday that Eygi was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by Israeli forces.

Her death was condemned by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken as the United States, Egypt and Qatar push for a cease-fire in the 11-month-long Israel-Hamas war and the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas. Talks have repeatedly bogged down as Israel and Hamas accuse each other of making new and unacceptable demands.

The war began when Hamas-led fighters killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. They abducted another 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire in November. Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.

Israeli airstrikes pounded central and southern Gaza overnight into Saturday, killing at least 14 people.

The strikes in Gaza City hit one home housing 11 people, including three women and four children, and another strike hit a tent in Khan Younis with Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza's Civil Defense said. They followed airstrikes earlier this week that hit a tent camp on Tuesday and a United Nations school sheltering displaced on Wednesday.

The Israeli army on Saturday ordered Palestinians sheltering in the northern neighborhoods of Manshiyeh, Beit Lahia and Sheikh Zayed to evacuate south toward Gaza City. The order came after projectiles were fired from the area, the Israeli army said in a post on X. It remains unclear how many people are sheltering in those areas.

Meanwhile, a campaign to inoculate children in Gaza against polio drew down and the World Health Organization said about 559,000 under the age of 10 have recovered from their first dose, seven out of every eight children the campaign aimed to vaccinate. The second doses are expected to begin later this month as part of an effort in which the WHO said parties had already agreed to.

"As we prepare for the next round in four weeks, we’re hopeful these pauses will hold, because this campaign has clearly shown the world what’s possible when peace is given a chance,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative in Gaza and the West Bank, said in a statement on Saturday.

The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times, and plunged the territory into a severe humanitarian crisis. Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count, but says women and children make up just over half of the dead. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants in the war.

Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo and Sam Metz in Rabat, Morocco, contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

At the Paris Olympics, cities and countries were discreetly making their case to host in 2036

Sport

At the Paris Olympics, cities and countries were discreetly making their case to host in 2036

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