On the long (back) way to the Olympics in Germany, the DOSB starts a “dialogue initiative”. Under the title “Your ideas. Your games.” “The foundation stone for an application for the Olympic and Paralympic Games should be worked out together with the population,” says Thomas Weikert, President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation.
“We would like to discuss and find out together: Why do you want the games, why not?” Weikert explains: “We want to enlighten, inform and break down reservations”, including those who “often are not wrongly attached to the mega-event”. The DOSB wants to “involve everyone, especially those who may not care at all about the Olympics or top-class sport”.
Because the sports umbrella organization is convinced of the added value of the games for society as a whole. After several specialist talks, debate camps and a campaign on social media or at www.deine-spiele.de, the decision on an application concept should be made: either for 2036 and 2040 in summer or 2038 and 2042 in winter.
Five cities or regions have expressed interest in an alignment: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich (with Bavaria), Leipzig (with Saxony) and North Rhine-Westphalia. The DOSB wants to enter the race with at least two and a maximum of four locations. By the end of 2023, the debates are said to have brought light into the darkness: In the “Frankfurt Declaration”, the questions “Summer or winter?” and the “where?” get answered.
Only then will the general meeting of the DOSB decide on how to proceed, the concept could be in place from May 2024. A citizens’ vote in the fall of ’24 could stop the plans. The DOSB expects the Summer Games 2036, the first possible option for the Olympic return to Germany since Munich ’72, to be awarded in 2026.