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IOC presidential candidate wants to bring Olympics to Africa

Wu Ching-kuo

International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidency candidate Taiwan’s Ching-Kuo Wu attends an IOC Session on July 4, 2013 in Lausanne. Six candidates are in the running to succeed Jacques Rogge as president of the International Olympic Committee: German Thomas Bach, Ukrainian Sergey Bubka, American Richard Carrion, Singapore’s Ser Miang Ng, Denis Oswald of Switzerland, and Taiwan’s Ching-Kuo Wu. AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI (Photo credit should read FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

AFP/Getty Images

The Olympics have never been held in Africa. International Olympic Committee presidential candidate Wu Ching-kuo wants to change that.

“The Olympic Games have taken place on all five continents but Africa, and therefore I will do my utmost to help bring about an African Games,” Wu told the state Central News Agency, according to Agence France-Presse.

If elected, Wu aims to have an African candidate in the last year of his tenure in 2021, when the vote will be held for the 2028 Olympics.

Cape Town previously bid for the 2004 Games and lost to Athens in a 1997 vote. There has been talk about a potential South Africa bid for the 2024 Olympics, but Nelson Mandela‘s recent illness put it on hold.

“We definitely will be bidding, but we don’t know which one,” South African IOC member Sam Ramsamy told Around the Rings in July.

South Africa became the first African country to host the World Cup in 2010.

Key information for IOC session -- voting on 2020 host, IOC president, sport inclusion

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