Britain is taking its first serious look at bringing the Olympics home.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said on Wednesday that ministers are in “discussions about supporting potential bids” for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the 2040s. According to the DCMS statement, the early work will “assess key factors such as potential cost, socio-economic benefit and [the] chance of success.”
It is the clearest signal yet that a fourth British Olympics is being treated as a real possibility, more than 30 years on from London 2012, a Games that cost £8.8 billion to stage, according to figures cited by the BBC.
The next two Summer Games are already settled. Los Angeles hosts in 2028, Brisbane in 2032. The International Olympic Committee has not chosen a 2036 host, and the Associated Press reports that India, Qatar, Turkey, Hungary, Germany and Chile are all interested. That leaves the 2040s as the realistic window for any UK bid.
The idea has been picking up steam at home. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said last year that he wanted the capital to bid for the 2040 Games. In December, the chair of UK Sport told the BBC that a bid “has to be an aspiration,” and suggested Liverpool and Manchester could be brought in as co-hosts. In February, a group of political leaders pushed the government to base any future bid in the north of England, telling the BBC there was a “compelling” case for the region to host.
For runners, the appeal is obvious. London 2012 produced Mo Farah’s double-gold heroics on the track and saw Stephen Kiprotich take the marathon title past St. Paul’s Cathedral and Buckingham Palace, a course still considered one of the most-watched road races in Olympic history.
A UK Games in the 2040s would put the marathon, the 10,000m and the rest of the track and field programme back on home soil for the first time since Stratford. It would also give a new generation of British distance runners — the ones currently chasing Eilish McColgan’s times on the road or coming up through the cross country ranks — a real shot at a home Olympics.
The athletics calendar in the UK is not exactly empty in the meantime. The European Athletics Championships are among the major events the country is hosting this summer, alongside the Women’s T20 World Cup and the Commonwealth Games. England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland are co-hosting Euro 2028, and the UK is the sole bidder for the 2035 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The DCMS framed the Olympic discussion as part of a broader push to make the country, in its words, the “go-to destination” for major sporting events. That push includes new legislation the government is considering, which would make it a criminal offence to resell tickets for specific major events without authorisation. The DCMS said the measures “will make it easier to bid for, secure and deliver major sporting events” and “ensure more tickets are available to fans at face value, rather than being snapped up by exploitative ticket touts and resold at inflated prices.”
The pitch from Whitehall
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy used the announcement to lean on the country’s recent track record as a host.
“Sport brings our country together like nothing else – and never more so than when we welcome the world’s biggest major events. From London 2012 right through to the record-breaking Women’s Rugby World Cup we hosted last summer, we’ve proven ourselves to be outstanding hosts time and time again.”
Lisa Nandy, Culture Secretary, in comments reported by The Independent
She added: “This Government is committed and ambitious. We want to continue attracting the most prestigious events in sport… showing the best of Britain to the world.”
For now, this is paperwork and politics. No host city has been picked, no bid book exists, and the IOC has years before it even names 2036 hosts. But for British runners watching the calendar, the prospect of an Olympic marathon on home roads has moved from wishful thinking to something the government is actually studying.
