What’s On has details of the Dubai Sports Council saying that a Dubai Olympic bid is a “dream they hope to realise”. Find out about the 2024 Olympic bid.

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Dubai are considering bidding to host the Olympic Games, according to the Dubai Sports Council.

The Indo Asian News Service reported direct from China on Thursday morning that Ali Omar, the director of the DSC’s sports development department, had revealed the Emirate would be in a position to bid at some point before 2022.

Following from the runaway success of London 2012, the biggest sporting event in the world turns to the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro in two years time, before heading to Tokyo, Japan in 2020. Bidding for the next instalment of the games, which will take place in 2024, is yet to begin, with only the German capital of Berlin having registered an interest.

But now Dubai could be in the mix.

“Hosting the Olympics is a dream; we hope to submit such a bid within the next eight years, God willing,” Omar said, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua.

The news is a major step forward after claims of a planned bid were initially dismissed late last year by Shaima Al Zarooni, a senior executive board member on the UAE National Olympic Committee.

“Currently, we don’t see any interest from the leadership [regarding an Olympic bid],” she said in December 2013. “We are more focussed on Expo 2020 and on making the event a success,” before adding that “Dubai is very well prepared. That’s why Jacques Rogge, the ex-International Olympics Committee(IOC) President who visited Dubai in 2010, stated that we are capable of holding the Olympics – it’s because of our infrastructure, because of our strategic location, because of the facilities and the commitment of the UAE people.

“We are certainly prepared; if we are capable of hosting Expo 2020, we are definitely prepared to host an Olympics.”