Thread by @KShriniwasRao

#Olympics #Thread

A dream waiting to come true...

Let’s take a break from cricket and look at India’s other sports aspirations. A big development took place today – Mrs Nita Ambani made a presentation at IOC to host the 2023 ‘Session’ in Mumbai. It was accepted unanimously.

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Indian Olympic Assn (IOA) president Narinder Batra, Youth Affairs & Sports Minister Anurag Thakur and India’s first-ever individual Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra were part of the Indian delegation with Mrs Ambani.
India last hosted an Olympic session in 1983.

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Royals, academicians, former sportsmen and women, corporate leaders, and more – the members who participate in an Olympic session make for a very unique set. The decisions taken at an Olympic session are considered final. Mumbai will host the session in May-June 2023.

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The IOC Session Evaluation Commission had visited India in 2019 to assess the venue at the BKC in Mumbai. The word sent out was the venue was as “state-of-the-art” as it gets. A good presentation and POA was the only bit waiting. That happened today.

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I was trying to get more details and heard this little interesting tid-bit. The moment India’s presentation was accepted, Mrs Ambani called her team members in Mumbai and said: “This has been a great effort from all of you. But the real work begins now”.

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“The real work” is where India’s aspirations lie. To bring the Youth & Summer Olympics here. It starts with hosting of the ‘Session’ next year, followed by the 2030 Youth Olympics. “Real work” is working towards the ‘big picture’ and everybody can only hope the year is 2036.

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In the past, I’ve had few opportunities to look at how Mrs Ambani has gone about with her priorities. In 2008, it all began with the decision to buy an IPL franchise. It was merely a stepping-stone. MI’s journey is an example of how they’ve gone about setting up things.

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“India needs to move from streetlights to the floodlights in,” she said 2010, with reference to sports. She was just about beginning to mark her journey. A year later, Reliance Sports brought the International Management Group on board, to set-up a structure and a vision.

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All of this was only a start. The Indian Super League was waiting to be launched, Mumbai Indians were on way to their first title & more later, and the concept of “Young Champs” – sport at grassroots – was emerging. And while this was happening, the ‘Big Picture’ was intact.

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What is that ‘Big Picture’? To work towards bringing the Summer Olympics to India, to enable the country to become a global sports destination. These things don’t happen overnight. Legacy-building is hard work and right now, that work is only about to begin.

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Be it the decking up of Wankhede before an IPL season or the state-of-the-art athletics centre at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneshwar, Mrs Ambani and her team have been involved on a 24x7 basis. On my recent visit to Odisha, I visited the Athletics high performance centre.

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A multi-sport platform for athletes, headed by a coach from the UK, the athletics HPC is an indicator of how deeply and intrinsically Reliance has moved in already. All of this is heading in one direction – nurturing the Olympic spirit.

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Those who’re tracking this space already reckon that India hosting the session already means it will host the 2030 Youth Olympics. But can the country host the Summer Olympics? That’s the path, never travelled before, that Mrs Ambani has chosen.

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The 2036 Mumbai Olympics has a nice India ring to it. Could be Ahmedabad too, you never know. Why is hosting an Olympics so important? There are multiple reasons, but none more imp than these:

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A) To be called among the world’s leading sports destinations.
B) A legacy-building exercise for the Indian republic and the people of the country.
India has one of the youngest and fastest-growing sports industries anywhere in the world. Consumption levels are humungous.

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The Olympic spirit will revolutionize the way we approach sport. It’ll be that one shot-in-the-arm for people of the country to embrace a spirit that, in terms of competition & resolve, is a cut above everything else the world has seen. It’s a door to step into the future.

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For Mrs Ambani, it’s an aspiration. The day she took over as India’s representative at IOC, this was topmost on her mind. Those were initial days & people didn’t take much notice. Now that the Session is here, followed by the Youth Oly, things just got a bit more serious.

Ends