JOHANNESBURG: South Africa plans to bid for the 2036 or 2040 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the government said Thursday, aiming to bring one of the world’s biggest sporting events to Africa for the first time.

The country was the first on the continent to host the football World Cup in 2010.

“South Africa initiates its intention to bid for the 2036 and 2040 Olympic Games,” minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said in a press briefing.

She said Pretoria had entered into “continuous dialogue with the International Olympic Committee”, headed since June by Zimbabwean Kirsty Coventry.

It is as a “preliminary and exploratory engagement that is critical to advance South Africa’s intention to bid for the hosting rights of the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Ntshavheni said, without specifying the potential host city.

Cape Town had bid to host the 2004 Games, which ultimately went to Athens in a 1997 vote.

Ntshavheni said South Africa wouldn’t require significant investment to improve its already available infrastructure.

“Even if we are offered the games tomorrow, cabinet is confident that we should be able to host them with our facilities,” she said.

In a visit to South Africa in October 2024, former IOC president Thomas Bach had said the country had “the stability, the infrastructure and vision to stage an Olympics”.

Senegal’s Dakar will next year be the first city on the continent to host the Youth Olympics, from October 31 to November 14, 2026.

The next Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles in 2028, and the 2032 Games have been awarded to Brisbane, Australia.

In October, Munich voters approved a plan for a bid to host the Summer Olympics in 2036, 2040 or 2044. The German city last hosted the Games in 1972.

South Africa has been putting its weight behind international sporting events, and has bid to host a Formula One Grand Prix at its historic Kyalami track near Johannesburg from 2027.

Africa’s most industrialised economy is also the main organiser of the 2027 men’s Cricket World Cup.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2025