Paris 2024 Olympic Games: Nita Ambani, the influential ambassador of the 2036 Games in India

The wife of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, re-elected to the IOC, receives in the Indian pavilion at the Porte de la Villette. The Asian giant is betting on the soft power of sport.

In recent weeks, she has appeared in the celebrity press around the world. Nita Ambani is the proud mother of Anant, whose flamboyant wedding – four months of festivities with private concerts by Justin Bieber and Rihanna, Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and the Bollywood elite as distinguished guests – is said to have cost more than 500 million euros. Nita Ambani, wife of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man and head of the Reliance conglomerate, is in Paris for the entire Olympic fortnight.

And for good reason, as she has been a member of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) since 2016, and has just been re-elected. The Reliance Foundation, which she chairs, financially supported the House of India House – the first in Olympic history – a brightly coloured pavilion with the silhouette of a Maharajah’s palace installed in the Parc de la Villette, not far from the houses of Brazil and Colombia.

It is in this   her husband and her “IOC friends”. “The athletes loved the boat parade,” enthuses Nita Ambani, who enjoyed hearing “Lady Gaga sing in French” while “Celine Dion was the icing on the cake.” Too diplomatic to criticize the Paris ceremony, when asked if ThomasJolly’s show could inspire an Olympic ceremony in India, she replied that  she would like to highlight Indian culture.

Because India has great ambitions in terms of the Olympics. Narendra Modi, like the leaders of Qatar before him and other emerging nations, has understood the potential power of sport in the service of soft power. The bid of Ahmedabad, the capital of the state of Gujarat, once governed by Modi and from which the Ambani family comes, for the 2036 Games is not yet official. But the prime minister, who was re-elected in June for a third term, “made it clear that he wanted [India] to run for 2036,” Ambani said.  A candidacy that she fervently defends.

Not quite yet an Olympic Giant

For now, the world’s most populous nation, with more than 1.4 billion people, is still not an Olympic giant. It is certainly fielding 117 athletes in 16 disciplines at Paris 2024 but has accumulated 10 gold medals in 25 Summer Olympiads (compared to more than 220 for France or more than 260 for the Chinese rival). The Foundation, chaired by Nita Ambani, supports several national champions, including Jyothi Yarraji, the first Indian woman to go under 13 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles.

“Her mother is a servant, her father a security guard “, our “queen of sprinting” “tells a story of this Indian youth full of hope”, says Nita Ambani. The country’s infrastructure has improved considerably over the past four to five years thanks to Prime Minister Modi. (…) Today, in India, it is much easier to reach a city from a village, and sports facilities have multiplied

Jyothi Yaraji trained at the High Performance Centre, one of the three sports facilities of the Reliance Foundation that also supports the educational, educational and sports training of more than 22 million young Indians across the country.

“We are becoming a multi-sport country,” says Nita Ambani. He cites Neeraj Chopra, gold medallist in the javelin in Tokyo, who was then followed on screens by 60 million compatriots. The national sport, almost a religion, remains cricket. Nita Ambani owns the Premier League club Mumbai Indians and the Reliance Group owns five clubs worldwide. Cricket will make itsdebut in the Olympic family at the Los Angeles Games in 2028. A golden opportunity for India.

What are the main assets of the Asian giant to claim the 2036 Olympiad? “This is our population of 1.4 billionpeople,  a very young population,” insists Nita Ambani. Two out of three Indians are under 35 years old.

“The country’s infrastructure has improved significantly over the past four to five years thanks to Prime Minister  Modi,” said the president of the Reliance Foundation. Before, travelling to India was difficult, for young people, joining a training centre could be an ordeal. Today, it is much easier to reach a city from a village, and sports facilities have multiplied.

In a country that is often portrayed as more diverse than Europe, which is crossed by religious and social fractures, “sport can be the best vector of unity and equality”, “when children are on the field, all differences are forgotten, this is what the world needs more than ever”, insists the fairy godmother of Indian sport.

(This is the English translation of the article in Le Figaro- the oldest and one of the most prominent national newspapers of France, featuring Nita Ambani as the proud ambassador supporting India’s claim to host the Olympics in 2036)