Successful World Cup opens up South African Olympic bid

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Posted: Wednesday 9th June 2010 | 11:52

SOUTH African sports officials are hoping a successful FIFA World Cup will help them break down sport's last remaining frontier - and bring the Olympics to the only continent never to stage it.

IMPRESSIVE: Durban's brand new World Cup stadium could be a centrepiece of a proposed 2020 Olympic bid

Rio's successful 2016 bid made much of the fact the Games had never been held in South America and Gideon Sam, president of the South Africa Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, believes he can make a similar case.

The race for 2020 is still taking shape with Cape Town and Durban both previously mentioned as potential host cities, while Rabat in Morocco is also planning an African bid. Interestingly, Durban will host the IOC Session in 2011 - a key moment in the bid process.

Rome was recently confirmed as heading an Italian bid while Madrid, who challenged unsuccessfully for the 2012 and 2016 Games are ready to make it third time lucky.

There is still plenty of time for bid teams to formulate their plans with a decision on the host set to be taken at the International Olympic Committee's Session in Buenos Aires in mid-2013.

"We told the International Olympic Committee following a meeting in Vancouver earlier this year that we would like to host the Olympics but that we wanted to wait until we had the full report after this summer's World Cup which will give us much more concrete evidence as to our abilities to host such a major sporting event," said Sam, in an interview with Sportindustry.co.za.

"All being well, and with the full backing of FIFA, we would like to look at hosting either the 2020 or 2024 Olympics."

Sam also hinted South Africa will also look at staging the Commonwealth Games in 2022, although they didn't put forward a candidate for the 2018 Games which will be a straight head-to-head between Australia's Gold Coast and Hambantota, in Sri Lanka.

"Our Minister of Sport has been very encouraging of such a prospect. He even turned round to me and said "what are we waiting for?" and he's absolutely right," he added.

"We are even looking at bidding for a Commonwealth Games even sooner. There is no reason why we shouldn't be in the frame for these kinds of spectacles."