When Qatar hosted the Asian Games in 2006, the city of Doha felt it had finally made its mark on the world. It was a coming-out party that has merely fuelled the country’s ambition to put on even larger, more celebrated events.
A bid to host the 2016 Olympics was cut short when the committee failed to place Doha on the shortlist that included Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid but ended up going to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But the sense of disappointment at failing to make the cut, alongside Baku and Prague, has quickly been replaced by a new bid to host the football World Cup in 2022.
