2036 Olympics: IOA logjam, with no meeting for long, poses a worry for bid

There seems to be no end in sight to the mess that the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), the umbrella governing body for sport, finds itself in for close to two years now – and this can be bad news for the country’s dreams of bidding for 2036 Summer Olympics.

A high powered Indian delegation, which visited the International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne last Tuesday to officially present Ahmedabad’s candidature as the host city, has received a rap on the knuckles about it’s governance issues.

 The IOA, according to sources conversant with details of the meeting between the Indian delegation and IOC, were given a red flag on three counts: the administration of the Olympics body, rising doping menace in India and the country’s poor performance history in the Games. At last year’s Paris Games, India failed to live up to the hype of reaching double figures in medals and finished at 71st spot with just six medals.

 This is not the first time that the IOC has cautioned the IOA, with the later suffering a breakdown of administration with no meeting of the executive council being conducted throughout 2025. ‘’Things have actually got from bad to worse with no meetings while late year, top IOA officials were left without their official email IDs due to non-payment of dues to the service provider. It’s the sportspersons who are taking the maximum hit what with another Asian Games coming up next year,’’ an executive committee member told National Herald.

IOA: Future tense as IOC stops Olympics solidarity grant

 What is it that’s coming in the way of P.T.Usha, the legendary sprinter and IOA president since 2022, from functioning properly after she was installed with much fanfare with the Union government’s blessings? The bone of contention raised by the executive council – which comprises of several distinguished Olympians – had been the appointment of Raghuram Iyer’s appointment as CEO for a hefty monthly salary of Rs 20 lakh without the due ratification from them.

 While the council members had been accusing Usha of running the IOA in an ‘autocratic’ manner, she had in turn levelled corruption charges against treasurer Sahdev Yadav, under whom the finance committee had blocked a proposal for preparatory grants to Olympics-bound athletes and coaches. She had last year issued a number of press statements, expressing her ‘deep concern’ that the IOA had even failed to felicitate the medal winners at Paris Olympics and Paralympics.      

  IOC, since October 2024, has stopped its athlete welfare grants to the Indian body because of the administrative logjam, saying it would not release the funds “until the situation improves”.

Executive Council member, IOAThings have actually got from bad to worse with no meetings while late year, top IOA officials were left without their official email IDs due to non-payment of dues to the service provider. It’s the sportspersons who are taking the maximum hit what with another Asian Games coming up next year

 There were also unconfirmed reports of the IOA failing to pay the salary of CEO Iyer, alongwith the office staff in the capital, as the finance committee was accused of not signing the cheques. However, Iyer was a part of the delegation to Lausanne which was headed by Usha, a BJP Rajya Sabha MP, Harsh Sanghavi, Gujarat’s Home & Sports Minister, high-ranking bureaucrats from the central and state governments including the secretary of Union sports ministry, private consultants and corporate executives.

 Meanwhile, a list released by National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) on Thursday revealed the name of a Asian Games bronze medallist, canoeist Arjun Singh, as one of the 35 offenders in various drug abuse cases. The timing is uncanny as the IOC pointed to the growing drug abuse rates in India as per World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) annual report for the year 2023 – the latest edition available.

  Last year, an independent WADA study revealed that India was second only to Russia as the country with the most number of positive doping cases among minors. The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has placed India at No.2 on the list of doping offenders, after Kenya, in track and field events according to data collected till May 2025.

The P.T. Usha story: An IOA president under siege in a divided house

Will such areas of criticism affect India’s pitch for the so called Ahmedabad 2036? While recent announcement of the new IOC president Kirsty Coventry to give the host selection process for 2036 a pause for at least three to four years, officials attending the meeting feel it could give India the chance to work on the areas of improvement.

  It will, hence, not be till 2028-29 that the 2036 host city will be decided and it will not be a free run with countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Indonesia likely to be in the running. ‘’The government officials in the Lausanne meeting were privy to the kind of embarrassment India faced because of the near stalemate in IOA administration. Hopefully, things will get moving now,’’ the sources added.