I think I have just visited Africa's first Olympic city.

No, not Johannesburg, South Africa's economic hub.

Or Cape Town, perhaps the only big city in the world that could claim to be as scenic as Rio de Janeiro, the 2016 Olympic Games host.

The place I am thinking of is Durban, another South African coastal city, on the Indian Ocean on the country's east coast.

Yes, this piece is partly triggered by a visit to the city's jaw-dropping new Moses Mabhida Stadium, where I watched the much-vaunted Spanish football team succumb to Switzerland in a recent World Cup tie.

It must be one of the most beautiful sports venues in the world, with its 105-metre high Wembley-esque arch, along which a funicular can carry customers to a viewing platform at the top of the arch.

But it wasn't the aesthetic splendour itself that got me thinking, "This city wants the Olympics".

It was more that a signature feature of that extravagance seems a little over the top for the sake of a few football games - even if one of them is a World Cup semi-final.

Then you start to notice other little details: such as that there is room in the arena for an athletics track around where the football pitch is now.

At 60-some thousand, it is true that the stadium as currently configured is not big enough to serve as the main stadium of a summer Olympics.

But when I looked it up, I read that its design "allows the stadium seating to be reduced to 54,000 for local matches or upscaled to 80,000 for events such as the Olympic Games".



The location seems perfect for an Olympic Stadium too.

I say this for two reasons:

It has been sited in what has become a veritable sports hub near the centre of Durban, incorporating another large football/rugby-type stadium and an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

According to Robbie Naidoo, a local businessman I consulted, there is also a cycling track, though it would need upgrading for an Olympics, and - who knows? - maybe other facilities too.

The stadium is also located adjacent to a pedestrianised zone that allows you to walk along the ocean front, past a humming casino/restaurant development, from numerous hotels to your seat in the stand.

"You have hit the nail on the head," Naidoo said when I started to expound my Olympic thesis to him.

Durban has been "like an international secret," he added.

There is more: I arrived in the city at a brand new airport. This too should prove a big asset: according to Naidoo, who is General Manager - South Africa for Jet Airways and hence in a good position to know, the old airport had runways too short to accommodate the biggest planes when fully laden.

I suspect Durban's biggest Olympic asset may prove not to be made of concrete or bricks and mortar, but flesh and bone.

Durban-born Sam Ramsamy (pictured), an International Olympic Committee member since 1995, quite simply knows more about the Olympic Movement than any other South African.

I haven't yet had the opportunity to discuss it with him in detail, but I would think the quality of the planning behind this first-rate sports hub has quite a lot to do with him.

I would be surprised, moreover, if Ramsamy was not the guiding light behind the decision to try to bring the 2011 IOC Session to Durban.

This is quite simply a masterstroke, ensuring that all IOC members and their spouses will be exposed to the city - and hence be able to draw on personal experience should they ever be required to assess its suitability as an Olympic host.

The host of the 2020 Olympics should normally be chosen only two years after that Session in 2013.

I actually think the competition might prove too hot for an African candidate city to win on that occasion.

In any case, with all these new stadiums around the place, I imagine that Durban would face a fight even to be adopted as the South African contender.

By 2024, however, the Olympic Movement ought to be ready for an African Olympic Games. That may be Durban's big chance.

Sam Ramsamy will be 86.

David Owen is a specialist sports journalist who worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering last year's Beijing Olympics. An archive of Owen’s material may be found by Twitter users at www.twitter.com/dodo938