MUMBAI: Mumbai will host the International Olympic Committee (IOC) session in 2023, IOC president Thomas Bach has said. The decision will be ratified at the 136th IOC session in Tokyo in July.
Bach stated: “We have chosen India because it is the second most populous nation in the world, with a very young population and a huge potential for Olympic sport. We want to encourage and support the National Olympic Committee of India and all the national federations to promote and strengthen Olympic sport in the country.”
The IOC session in 2023 is expected to choose the host city for the 2030 Winter Olympics.
A post put out on the official Twitter handle of IOC Media reads: “The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board (EB) has decided that Mumbai, India, will be put forward to a vote of the IOC Members to host the IOC Session in 2023. The decision will be taken at the 136th IOC Session in Tokyo in July.”
India has earlier hosted an IOC session in 1983 in New Delhi.
The IOC Session Evaluation Commission had visited Mumbai in October 2019 to study the feasibility of hosting the IOC session in Mumbai.
According to the report by the commission, the quality of facilities at the Jio World Centre, the potential venue for the IOC session, is praiseworthy.
The choice of Jio World Centre to host the IOC session is pertinent in the light of the fact that India’s first woman IOC member is Nita Ambani, whose family controls Reliance Industries Ltd, parent company of the Reliance Jio telecommunications behemoth.
