Germany Staying in 2032 Bid Race

(ATR) The initiative for a bid by the Rhine-Ruhr region for the 2032 Olympic Games is to be continued - even if the chances of success are only minimal.

On Wednesday, an IOC evaluation commission recommended the Australian candidate Brisbane as the host of the 2032 Games, thus dealing Rhein Ruhr City a severe blow. NRW Minister President Armin Laschet (CDU) announced on Friday in Düsseldorf after a consultation with the mayors of the municipalities concerned and the Rhine-Ruhr City initiative that he would not give up despite the IOC's push for Brisbane.

And Rhein-Ruhr CEO Michael Mronz assured that the organizers would not throw in the towel: "If we pull the plug before the IOC makes a final decision and something goes wrong with the Brisbane project, then we will rightly have to face the question: Why did you do that?"

In addition, the CDU leader sharply attacked the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Laschet was pretty angry, and he didn't try to hide it.

"The DOSB has not seen itself in a position to enter into a serious dialogue with the IOC about a German Olympic bid, I very much regret that," the North Rhine-Westphalian premier said in Düsseldorf on Friday: "That shows me that the DOSB has no feeling for what is going on in the IOC."

DOSB president Alfons Hörmann, in a written statement, said he wanted to clear up any questions and interpretations about the processes taken so far, and emphasized that the DOSB was not working alone.

"All steps in the past weeks have been taken jointly by the DOSB and Rhine Ruhr City 2032 without exception. All the more reason for us to hope that we will quickly return to the proven spirit of partnership that has characterized our cooperation to date,"Hörmann said.

"Obviously, there is still a considerable need for information regarding the actual processes in the interaction of the institutions involved. We will therefore once again present the entire process in detail and transparently from the perspective of the DOSB at a virtual press conference next Monday," he concluded.

Laschet also criticized the IOC. He spoke to its president Thomas Bach on the phone after the events on Wednesday and told him that "this is not the transparency that the IOC wants according to its own self-proclamation. The argument, he said, was that Brisbane had already delivered everything and that this was an important aspect in times of the pandemic, but, "If they had signaled to us in good time, until then and then we need this and that from you, we would also have delivered everything at the present time," Laschet said, "But there was no signal."

"In any case, the 14 cities and municipalities on the Rhine and Ruhr are still ready and highly motivated to host the "Olympics in the thirties" in Germany", said Laschet. And Mronz added: "After all, we are ready, 90 percent of our sports facilities are available, the financing is in place, we can get started tomorrow, Rhein Ruhr City 2032, as a purely private-sector initiative, in pursuing the vision of ecologically and economically sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Games."

Even the citizens' survey planned for September in the participating cities and municipalities "we could have brought forward without any problem," the CDU party leader said. When this will be carried out will also depend on whether the final decision for Brisbane is made this year: "And then the IOC will also have to consider whether it makes sense to bring millions of people to Tokyo this summer in view of a worldwide pandemic. Of course, we are also somewhat dependent on all these things."

However, Mronz said the plans for a bid would be adhered to in any case, with 2036 also conceivable in the Rhine-Ruhr region 100 years after the Nazi Games in Berlin. Laschet does not see hosting the Games 100 years after those in Berlin under the Nazi regime as an obstacle: "The message these Games have is also one of content. The world is different 100 years later than it was at the 1936 Games. Showing this, making this visible, would fit with any Games in the 1930s."

"However, the DOSB must first consider whether Germany as a sporting country is capable of hosting Olympic Games or whether it would be better to wait for the third, fourth and fifth Australian city or the third and fourth from France."

In any case, says Mronz, Rhein Ruhr City is regarded as a "decade project" that is not dependent on a year: "We are also going ahead because we want to become the world's first ever Olympic bid with a positive referendum."

Written by Piet Kreuzer

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