IOC President Thomas Bach waves the Olympic flag during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics at the Stade de France, Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

PARIS — If historic waterways are the new must-have accessory for Olympic host cities, the mayor of Istanbul wants the IOC to know his city has one.

If the key to hosting the 2036 Summer Games lies in hosting world championships in elite sports at the Olympic level, Qatar can fall back on its track record of the past decade.

If winning the International Olympic Committee is about ambition, finance and building relationships, then the Indian project, backed by the Ambani family and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is a good choice.

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Saudi Arabia is following a similar path and has signed an agreement with the IOC in Paris to host the Olympic Esports Games for a period of 12 years, even after the next Summer Games, which may still be awarded.

If the 2036 Olympics are to be moved to Asia – a logical choice after Paris, Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032 – Indonesia will push forward its position as a fast-growing economy of 280 million people.

In Paris, interested parties quietly argued their case for hosting the Olympics in a process led by the IOC that is now more discreet, less obviously campaigning and that critics say is too opaque. It could end with a winner much more quickly than the old way of voting for multiple candidates seven years before the Games. Brisbane outdid Qatar to win the 2032 prize 11 years earlier.

If one thing is clear, it is that the host country of the 2036 Olympic Games will be known long before 2029 and the bar that Paris has set high will be firmly set.

“I’m mainly focused on what the IOC expects, what they dream about, what the world wants to see,” Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu told The Associated Press in an interview in Paris. “Personally, I’m not really interested in which city is the competitor.”

The IOC has said a “double-digit” number of cities or countries are in discussions, perhaps informally at this point, about their interest in hosting future Summer Games, which could take place later than 2036.

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However, the parties that hosted Paris over the past two weeks made it clear that they wanted to do so.

At the opening of India House on July 27, IOC member Nita Ambani said that hosting the Olympic Games was “a dream of 1.4 billion Indians.”

The Ambani family, India’s wealthiest and owner of the conglomerate Reliance Industries, now has a global reputation for lavish hospitality. Months-long celebrations for their son Anant’s wedding in Mumbai drew world leaders, A-list artists and several IOC members who ultimately vote to confirm the Games’ hosts.

Qatar had no public catering facilities, even though the ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, was in Paris for meetings of the IOC, of ​​which he has been a member since 2002, and for the opening ceremony.

Istanbul House opened in the final week of the Paris Olympics, reminding visitors that the city will host the European Games in 2027. It is a kind of audition project.

“You are also competing with the previous experiences of the Olympic Games,” İmamoğlu said in translated comments. “You have to do better than what was done in the past.”

What Paris has done is show the sustainability-focused IOC that the Olympics can be staged without building white elephant stadiums that stand long after the closing ceremonies as a reminder of wasted tax dollars.

Los Angeles will move forward with only existing or temporary venues by 2028. This goal will be achieved by moving two sports that could not be hosted locally — softball and canoe slalom — about 1,300 miles (2,000 kilometers) east to Oklahoma City.

Indonesia is hoping to impress Olympic evaluators by hosting the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang. The Asian Games have more sports and athletes than the Olympics, and Saudi Arabia won’t host them until 2034, in Riyadh. Qatar did so in Doha in 2006 and will do so again in 2030.

“Indonesia has the infrastructure, the ambition and the willingness to do this,” said Anindya Bakrie, the leader of the Indonesian team at the Paris Olympics.

When Indonesia refused to host Israel’s matches at last year’s Under-20 Men’s World Cup, FIFA moved the tournament to another country in the region with the world’s largest Muslim population just weeks before the start of the tournament.

“By saying we want to bid for 2036, it also means that we know we have to address the problem. If we do it right,” Bakrie said, “we have enough time to inform the public.”

And if Istanbul is to win – in 2036 or 2040 – why not have another athletes’ parade during an opening ceremony on the Bosphorus, which connects Europe and Asia?

“If you have the scenario, the right choreography, it can be very formidable,” İmamoğlu said. “You can dream of 500,000 people watching the inauguration in such a setting.”