Hamburg decided Tuesday to pull back on a possible bid for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, following a clear “no” in a referendum held on Munich’s bid for the 2022 Winter Games.
Guenter Ploss, President of the Hamburg sports federation HSB, told the Hamburger Abendblatt Daily “it would be careless to go forward with this now”.
He said local officials must first analyze what went wrong in Munich before considering submitting a bid.
Michael Neumann, a spokesman for the local politician responsible for sport said, “applying for the Olympics is a marathon, not a sprint. Hamburg has the potential to host any major event. We want to be ready by at least the end of the decade to successfully bid for national and international events”.
Ploss added that important questions must be answered. There has to be a realistic chance for the bid to succeed; politicians and residents should support the bid and the costs of the spectacle should be clarified ahead of time.
He said, “the Games in London cost 12 billion Euros ($16 billion). You have to say beforehand who will pay that in the end”.
Hamburg bid to become Germany’s candidate for the 2012 Olympics but lost to Leipzig which then lost to London.
