EU backs Olympic bid for 2036, while London wants the Games in 2040

Just a year after Paris hosted the Summer Olympics, Europe is already jockeying to bring the world’s premier sporting jamboree back to the continent as soon as possible.

European Sport Commissioner Glenn Micallef told POLITICO he wanted to see “the Olympic flame being lit again on EU territory at the soonest opportunity.”

“The Paris Olympics and Paralympic Games 2024 proved that such a spectacle can be both economically viable and promote shared values and sustainability,” he said.

“And to see the European Union visibly present for the first time was tremendous,” Micallef added. The EU’s circle of stars was flown at the Games alongside the Olympic flag for the first time last year.

With the upcoming Summer Olympics to be held in Los Angeles in 2028, followed by Brisbane in 2032, the earliest Europe could host the Summer Games is 2036 — though Milan will host the Winter Games in 2026.

London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan told The Times in an interview published Monday that he wanted the British capital to be “the sporting capital of the world” and would be keen to explore a bid to host the Games in 2040.

London last staged the Olympics in 2012, meaning it already has the necessary infrastructure and could be “the greenest Games ever,” Khan added.

It’s unlikely that the International Olympic Committee, which organizes Olympic events, would be in favor of Europe hosting two consecutive Olympic Games, however.

Meanwhile, incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has also committed to supporting a bid to bring the Olympics back to Germany, according to Volker Bouffier, the former minister-president of Hessen who now serves on the board of the German Olympic Sports Confederation, or DOSB.

Bouffier told Sport Bild on Friday that he personally asked Merz to support a German bid to host the Olympics in 2036, 2040 or 2044, to which Merz responded that Bouffier could “rely on” him.

The DOSB has not yet selected a city to represent Germany in a bid. The last time the country hosted the Summer Olympics was in 1972, in Munich.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Madrid region, last year called for the Spanish capital to host the Games and said the region was “working on” a bid. A Spanish business association, the Madrid Business Forum, backed that proposal this week.

The host city for 2036 has yet to be determined, though Istanbul, Santiago, and Nusantara — the planned new capital of Indonesia — have all signaled interest. The IOC has no timeline for selecting the 2036 or 2040 host cities.