The country that could become first in Middle East to host the Olympics
The Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) is currently engaged in ongoing discussions with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regarding the bid.
Qatar previously hosted the men's Fifa World Cup in 2022. No Middle East country has ever hosted the Olympic Games before.
Hosting a Summer Games in Qatar's climate may necessitate a departure from the traditional June and July schedule, similar to the 2022 World Cup which was held in November and December.
QOC president Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al Thani said that 95 per cent of the required sports infrastructure is already in place.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
9 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Magnus Carlsen shows how Saudi Arabia gobbles up global sports stars
In February, Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen extended his reign over the online chess world when he defeated longtime rival Hikaru Nakamura in back-to-back matches to retain his Chessable Masters title. The tournament kicked off this year's Champions Tour, a circuit Carlsen has dominated since its launch in 2020. But now, the stakes were even higher: the tour doubles as a qualifier for the Esports World Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where the winner of the chess section of the tournament will take home $250,000 for three days' work. The chess tournament is part of the broader Esports World Cup, a seven-week spectacle that began on 8 July and stretches into late August. This is only the second edition of the World Cup but with more than 2,000 participating players, 25 different events and a record-breaking $70m total prize pool, it is the largest and most ambitious event of its kind. Chess is set to make its debut at this year's edition. The sport has captured a massive new audience in recent years, fueled by charismatic YouTube personalities, platforms like Netflix hit drama The Queen's Gambit, and a pandemic that imposed agonizing periods of isolation. Amid this online resurgence, the centuries-old game of intellectual prowess has remerged as a digital-era sensation. Keen to capitalize on chess's popularity, Saudi Arabia enlisted Carlsen as the global ambassador for the Esports World Cup. Along with Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlsen is expected to lend his name and fanbase to the event in the hopes of luring new fans to the Saudi-bankrolled tournament. That public relations campaign seemingly kicked off on the opening day of the world cup, when Carlsen issued a friendly challenge to play a chess match against Ronaldo. 'I personally don't know what Ronaldo has done on the chess chessboard, but what he has done in his life, in his football career, is extremely impressive. So, I would certainly be very honored if I could, you know, meet him or play chess while I'm here,' Carlsen told reporters. Carlsen's decision to peddle Saudi PR came as a bit of a surprise given his limited engagement with the kingdom in the past. He won the 2017 world championships (in rapid and blitz chess) in Riyadh, a tournament that was boycotted by his top female counterpart from Ukraine because of Saudi Arabia's discrimination against women. The closest Carlsen came to criticizing the kingdom at the time was over the refusal to grant visas to Israeli players. 'I hope that if [the rapid and blitz championships] are arranged here several times, that everyone can participate,' Carlsen told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. Carlsen is not known for taking strong stances on human rights issues. On 21 March 2019 – the UN's international day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination – Carlsen and former chess champion Anish Giri launched the #MoveForEquality campaign to tackle the issue through a symbolic chess match where black moved first instead of white, breaking a longstanding chess rule. However, while Carlsen has largely steered clear of human rights debates, his decision to partner with Saudi Arabia underscores how few sports stars can resist the kingdom's growing influence … or its deep pockets. Though Carlsen's deal is technically with the Esports World Cup, the event is entirely owned by Saudi's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and is part of the kingdom's broader power plays across sports. Over the past nine years, the kingdom has invested unprecedented sums across a wide range of sports as part of an overarching soft power strategy aimed to rebrand Saudi Arabia as a global hub for sports, tourism and entertainment. The vast majority of these investments – including Saudi's foray into boxing, its purchase of English Premier League club Newcastle United, and its securing of the hosting rights for the 2034 World Cup, have been facilitated by the PIF, which is chaired by Saudi's crown prince (and de facto ruler) Mohammed bin Salman – reportedly an avid gamer himself. Carlsen now joins other renowned athletes like Ronaldo, Rafael Nadal, and Lionel Messi as well-paid pitchmen for the Saudi regime. In 2023, I broke a story for the New York Times which revealed the details of Lionel Messi's partnership with Saudi Arabia's tourism authority – a deal valued at $25m over three years, including publicized vacations in Saudi with his family, as well as a series of promotional material and regular social media posts. However, the real revelation was that Messi's contract also included a non-negotiable condition for Saudi officials: Messi cannot say anything that might 'tarnish' Saudi Arabia's image. It is possible, if not likely, that a similar clause is included in Saudi's agreements with each of its ambassadors, including Carlsen. It is a strategy that allows the kingdom to reap the promotional benefits of being associated with some of the world's most beloved athletes while maintaining full control of the narrative being presented, under penalty of litigation. Nevertheless, Carlsen's willingness to cooperate with Saudi Arabia is not surprising. The kingdom's vast investments in sports and entertainment, backed by its seemingly limitless resources, have helped normalize its image, making it more palpable to previously hesitant audiences. Even Saudi Arabia's increasing human rights abuses, from quashing dissent to record-breaking execution rates, have had little impact on those eager to participate in the Saudi gold rush. This including the burgeoning world of esports and gaming. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Over the past few years, Savvy Games Group, a company owned by the PIF, has acquired a large portion of the global esports industry. Aside from holding shares in Nintendo, Electronic Arts, and Activision, Savvy acquired mobile game developer Copley for $4.9bn, which later went on to acquire Niantic, the games business behind Pokémon Go. Saudi Arabia is also building Qiddiya City, a dedicated district that will house regional esports headquarters, clubs, and arenas. It is an exceptional level of investment that makes Saudi impossible to ignore as the major player in the global esports market. And though it would be easy to write off the kingdom's efforts as sportswashing – a term that describes efforts to use sports as a distraction from ongoing human rights abuses – I would argue that the term offers an overly simplistic understanding of the kingdom's aims. It is a multi-pronged strategy that is part foreign policy, part domestic socialization project, a strategy of pacifying the public with entertainment and material goods. With more than two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's population under the age of 35 – a significant number of whom are gamers – the kingdom's heavy investment in gaming has only enhanced bin Salman's popularity among young Saudis, which further stabilizes his regime. As for Carlsen, his role as an ambassador for one of Saudi's spectacles underscores the kingdom's ability to lure almost any athlete across sports and entertainment. Along with the likes of Messi, Ronaldo and Nadal, Carlsen is merely the latest star mobilized to help legitimize Saudi Arabia as a global destination for sports and soften its controversial image among fans. And with every star who signs on, the regime's image gleams just a little bit brighter.
South Wales Guardian
11 minutes ago
- South Wales Guardian
Eva Okaro relishing trailblazer status ahead of World Championships
Okaro became the first black British swimmer to compete in the pool at an Olympic Games at the age of just 17 in Paris last summer when she was part of the women's 4 x 100m freestyle relay team which reached the final. Now 18, she is heading for the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore delighted to be inspiring other young swimmers. Sprint Queens 👑👑 Scarlett Humphrey (S11) takes the Multi-classification British title by a single point, with Eva Okaro setting a big lifetime best to win the Women's 50m Freestyle A Final secure ➕ secure her Singapore world champs team place 👉 — Aquatics GB (@Aquatics_GB) April 17, 2025 Okaro, who won the 50m freestyle and 50m butterfly at the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships in April, said: 'I think it's a privilege to be in this role and I like to be a role model to especially young girls of any ethnicity, any colour, it doesn't matter. 'But it's just nice to know that I'm not in this alone as well because they don't just look up to me, but they encourage me and want to see me do well and I think that's also a big thing, just knowing that there are people behind me and people that I don't even know that just believe in me. 'That helps a lot with my confidence and being able to perform.' Asked if she was aware anecdotally of youngsters who had been encouraged by her rise to prominence, Okaro added: 'I've had a few messages before and I've been stopped a couple of times by little girls who are basically just telling me that they keep swimming because of me, which is really nice.' Okaro, who still trains with her twin sister Izabella, is scheduled to compete in the 50m and 100m freestyle and 50m butterfly in Singapore, although is yet to make a decision on whether to take part in all three after missing a week and a half of training while she sat her A-levels. Whatever happens at the World Championships, she will be heading for the United States later this year to continue her athletic and academic careers at the University of Texas, glad her exams are out of the way. She said: 'It's definitely made me feel more relaxed, 100 per cent, because little things like even homework or turning up to lessons and waking up at 7.30am for breakfast, stuff like that, I don't have to do that anymore so I can solely be focused on swimming. 'That's definitely something I've got in my locker now and it's just made it a lot easier for me.'
Reuters
14 minutes ago
- Reuters
Brisbane 2032 on track but with little wiggle room seven years out
BRISBANE, July 23 (Reuters) - Andrew Liveris is happy with the progress organisers of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics have made so far but concedes they will have little wiggle room if they experience delays while implementing the plans they have been working on for the last three years. The opening ceremony of Australia's third Summer Games will take place exactly seven years from Wednesday, the same period of time that most host cities in the modern era have had from winning the bid to staging the Olympics. Under the International Olympic Committee's New Norm policy, however, Brisbane won hosting rights in 2021 only for political wrangling over the venues to delay the decision on the final plans until March this year. "The venues got a lot of noise," Liveris, president of the Brisbane Organising Committee for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, told Reuters this week. "The political body was disagreeing on a couple of very big ones and that didn't help, but they got that out of the way and frankly, seven years to go, we have our plans, and I'm happy with where we are ... "Seven years is enough time, but we don't have a lot of wiggle room." Liveris is cautious about what impact global economic changes and trends over the next few years might have on the budgets and timelines for the main venue construction projects. "With 84% of our venues being existing or temporary, we're mostly in good shape," he added. "But the 16% includes the stadium, includes the aquatic centre, it includes a few very important venues. That would be the biggest challenge we have." There was little evidence around the city this week that the world's biggest sporting event was coming to southeast Queensland in seven years' time. At the Centenary Pool, which will be redeveloped to host aquatic events in 2032, mainly elderly club amateurs swam laps, read newspapers and sipped coffee in the winter sunshine. Across a footbridge where the main 63,000-seater stadium for the Games will be built, the larger part of Victoria Park remained a green preserve of dog walkers, picnickers and school sports lessons. The decision to construct the two biggest new venues in a heritage-listed city centre park with special significance for the local indigenous Turrbal and Yugara peoples has triggered fierce local opposition. The Save Victoria Park campaign, which has been raising money for a legal challenge, maintains that the stadium plan goes directly against bid commitments on sustainability and First Nations rights. "It's not that we're anti-Olympics or anti-stadium, it's just that we don't believe this is a suitable site," spokesperson Andrea Lunt told Reuters. "It's going to concrete over this gorgeous, pristine parkland for an Olympics that is supposed to be sustainable." The Queensland state government last month enacted legislation to exempt the Olympic building projects from normal planning rules but Liveris said the concerns of the campaigners would still be addressed. "I'm not saying that they won't be heard," he said. "Everyone's going to get some accommodation, and the government's going to have to be seen to be saying, 'okay, we understand the concerns, here's how we're going to mitigate them'." Liveris went to school and university in Brisbane before building a highly successful career around the world with multinational corporation Dow Chemicals, which he served as chairman and chief executive for 14 years. While the 71-year-old has overseen multi-billion dollar projects before, his current role also involves work that can be less easily managed with spreadsheets and a firm hand. Near the top of his in-tray is how to engender the enthusiasm of the people in Australia's fastest growing region for the Olympics. Liveris said Brisbane had learned a lot from how Paris went about engaging its people for the 2024 Olympics and thought the excitement would grow as the benefits of the Games became more evident. "What Queensland is going through, southeast Queensland in particular, is growing pains," he said. "I think a lot of people want to see better infrastructure, want to see their lives getting better. And I think this is where the Olympics can enable that by accelerating that infrastructure." Liveris was recently re-appointed for another four-year term as president of the organising committee and said, health permitting, he was keen to keep going all the way to July 23, 2032. "People around me know I'm pretty high energy, I'm pretty high enthusiasm and caffeine is a really good fuel," he laughed. "I'm treating this like it's the whole way, and we'll see where it takes me. But right now, I'm going to get this job done that's my mission."
