South Africa has formally positioned Durban as its preferred candidate city to host the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in either 2036 or 2040, a move that could bring the world’s premier sporting event to the African continent for the first time in history.
The announcement was made on Thursday by Lwandile Simelane, acting president of the South African Sports Confederation, Olympic and Paralympic Committee. While Durban stands as the anchor city for the national effort, officials indicated the proposal is expected to take the form of a multi-city bid, incorporating various events across other urban centers. Prior to settling on Durban, national organizers also evaluated economic hubs Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Durban, home to roughly 4 million residents along the subtropical Indian Ocean coast, previously attracted consideration as a potential Olympic host more than a decade ago following the successful delivery of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which marked Africa’s first staging of the soccer tournament. However, an official bid ultimately failed to materialize at that time, driven largely by financial apprehensions. The municipality later faced setbacks when it was stripped of hosting the 2022 Commonwealth Games after failing to deliver required financial and administrative guarantees.
Despite past fiscal hurdles, sports officials stated on Thursday that preliminary estimates regarding the total cost of staging the 2036 or 2040 Games are not yet available. The core infrastructure for Durban’s bid is slated around the 56,000-seat Moses Mabhida Stadium, constructed specifically for the 2010 World Cup.
Competition for the 2036 Summer Games is robust, with South Africa joining a field of seven bidding nations that includes India, Qatar, South Korea, Germany, Hungary, and Turkiye. National Olympic committees face an International Olympic Committee deadline of October 31 to formally declare their interest in the 2036 competition. Prospective host cities are scheduled to deliver virtual presentations to the IOC next month to launch the official bidding workflow, followed by a critical milestone in March when the IOC executive board is expected to approve an official shortlist of candidates. The IOC will ultimately select the host city for the 2036 Games in mid-2029.
Should South Africa’s campaign succeed, it would mark a historic milestone: the first African host of the modern Summer Olympic Games since their inception in 1896. The country’s previous effort to secure the Games resulted in Cape Town’s unsuccessful bid for the 2004 Olympics. Meanwhile, the broader continental sports landscape is seeing immediate advancement, with the Youth Olympics opening this weekend in Dakar, Senegal, representing the first Olympic sports competition ever held on the African continent.
