OpinionAsia will return golden lustre to Olympics – and for that the ‘Lords of the Rings’ should bow forever

Once the most desirable international gathering, sporting or otherwise, the IOC can’t even give away hosting rights for some games. Beijing was almost defaulted the 2022 Winter Games when four of the six hosting candidates withdrew leaving delegates to choose between Almaty, Kazakhstan, and China’s capital.

Bidding for the 2024 Summer Games looked like it would be a battle of behemoths with Paris, Rome and Los Angeles vying alongside Budapest and Hamburg. But when Rome, Budapest and Hamburg pulled out, the IOC decided to go with Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028 without even a vote.

Enter the supposed “saviour”. When the torch is lit in a few days in Pyeongchang, South Korea, it will mark the beginning of Asia’s Olympic era, with Tokyo following in 2020 and Beijing in 2022. And if that’s not enough, Sapporo in Japan has now emerged as the clear favourite to host the 2026 Winter Games.

Despite having 60 per cent of the world’s population, only four of the last 26 Olympics have been held here – two summer (Seoul 1988, Beijing 2008) and two winter (Sapporo 1972, Nagano 1998).

Of course, there are always extenuating circumstances and the simple truth is that countries like China and Korea were not fiscally equipped to host the games 40 years ago. But today China is the world’s second-largest economy, Japan number three and South Korea at 11. Combine that with a legacy of efficiency and it is not difficult to see why the IOC very much needs Asia.