Sharp debate about the application: “Germany is far from ready for the Olympics”

“If Germany and German sport don’t position themselves completely differently internationally, we don’t have a chance with an Olympic application,” complained Sylvia Schenk. The German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) and professional associations would have missed years. A sports foreign policy is needed that makes it clear what German sport wants to achieve. “This can result in an Olympic application,” warned the former athlete, politician and sports official, but it doesn’t work the other way around: “We don’t win a flower pot with the selfish question of what use the Olympics are for us.”

2032 Winter Games or 2036 Summer Games

The Sports Committee of the German Bundestag coyly presented its public hearing this Monday as a question about the “future of major national and international sporting events”, as was Sylvia Schenk, who, as a representative of Transparency International, saw herself as the only representative of civil society among the experts. When DOSB President Thomas Weikert once spoke of “this human rights issue”, it matched her verdict: “Germany is far from ready for the Olympics.” the 1972 Olympics confusing sustainability and heritage. “Games with eleven murdered athletes are not sustainable,” she said to Weikert.

Weikert announced that his association would start a leadership training program with the acronym LEAP (English for jump) in October, in which former top athletes in particular should be prepared for positions in international top associations. In addition, they would be taught relevant skills and sports policy background knowledge in Frankfurt, Lausanne, Brussels and Berlin.

Weikert didn’t bother too long with any major sporting events, but instead got down to business after pointing out the great European Championships in Munich and the European Basketball Championship games in Cologne and Berlin. It would have been easy to ride the wave of enthusiasm generated at these events and to join the canon of those calling for an Olympic bid, he asserted: “We didn’t do that.” Not because he and his presidency didn’t want the Olympics, but because they went different ways.

Practically since its election in December, the Presidency has agreed that it wants to bring the Olympic Games to Germany. Motivation and good concepts were not enough, as the failed applications from Munich and Hamburg showed. The DOSB has therefore been working for months on a strategy with which it wants to convince the majority of the population and which should lead to an application in two years. Then it will be about the 2032 Winter Games or the 2036 Summer Games.

Weikert announced that people would have to express their concerns and reservations and find their suggestions in the concept. The traces left by years of discussions about a lack of sustainability, the apparent gigantism, unsuccessful applications and difficult to understand awards of the games are too deep. Weikert promised details for the general meeting of the DOSB in December.

The sports committee, ministry and sports officials are so fixated on the Olympic bid that Andreas Michelmann, spokesman for team sports, did not repeat what he had previously written: that although the Olympic Games are desirable, the focus should be on world and European championships, since these could take place much more frequently in Germany. André Hahn from the left stated that it was difficult for him to advertise for the Olympics in Germany as long as school sports were canceled and there were no swimming lessons. In the sports department of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, eleven employees are busy implementing the national strategy for major sporting events – a paper that was created with great effort, but expressly not for an Olympic application.