The city of Duesseldorf is to be promoted by local officials in Germany’s Rhine and Ruhr regions to bid for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.
Other German cities considering a 2012 bid include Stuttgart, Leipzig and Frankfurt.
Mayors from several towns in the area, including Aachen, Bochyum, Bonn, Dortmund, Duesseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Cologne and Oberhausen, met with the premier of the regional state of North Rhine-Westphalia to discuss the bid.
State sports minister Michael Vesper told the Sid sports agency that “Duesseldorf is like the captain of a soccer team, but without the rest of the team we can’t win the match. Only together do we stand a chance”.
A decision on the 2012 host city will be made by the International Olympic Committee in 2005. But if Paris wins the 2008 Games, it’s unlikely another European city would be awarded the 2012 Games. Germany would then concentrate on winning the 2010 Winter Games for Munich.
