Following its withdrawal from a bid for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, South Africa will now bid for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
President of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASOC) Gideon Sam told reporters Thursday, “immediately after the announcement of where the 2018 Commonwealth Games will be held we will go in for 2022. It has never been to Africa and so we want to put in a bid”.
The host city for the 2018 Commonwealth Games will be announced in November in St. Kitts and Nevis.
Sam said there was nothing to stop the country bidding for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. He said “in the past we stood back for Nigeria but they lost out to Glasgow (for the 2014 Games). This time we have said there will be no horse-trading; we will put up our hand and see how we go”.
He added that a bid for the Commonwealth Games would not be hampered by the same issues that affected a possible Olympic bid.
“The scale of the Commonwealth Games is a lot smaller than the Olympics. We will have to have buy-in from a host city and from government because of security issues, but we are not talking about the expense of an Olympics”.
