Shortly before the vote: Berlin withdraws its Olympic bid

According to taz information, the Senate is withdrawing Berlin's application for the 2036, 2040 or 2044 Summer Games shortly before the vote on Germany's Olympic candidacy. The state government, which will remain black and red for the time being even after the Left Party's election victory, will make this decision official in a press conference on Thursday morning. Berlin's Olympic Commissioner Kaweh Niroomand, Prime Minister Kai Wegner (CDU) and Sports Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) agreed on this, it was heard from the Red City Hall, after a meeting on Wednesday.

In doing so, you are forestalling a decision that will be made on Saturday in the Kurhaus Baden-Baden. There, the extraordinary general meeting of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) should decide whether it will apply for the Olympic Games with the federal capital, Munich or the Rhine-Ruhr region. Now there are only two candidates left to choose from.

The chances of Berlin's application, which was pushed forward by the previous black-red Senate, had suffered two setbacks since Sunday: by the Left Party's victory in the House of Representatives election and by a recently presented assessment result by a DOSB commission. The Left Party had rejected an application in Berlin, just like in the other applicant regions - only the mayor of Rostock, where sailing competitions would take place, which it nominated, supported an application.

The party's top candidate, Elif Eralp, who would lead the Senate as Governing Mayor in an alliance with the Greens and the SPD, said on the Monday after the election that "the decision has been made." Your party also won the election with statements about the Olympics. “In this respect, those who bring this to Berlin will also consider whether it makes sense to then award such an application,” said Eralp in the direction of the DOSB delegates.

The reason behind this is that the Greens, one of the two possible coalition partners, also reject the Olympics. However, this only applies to the Berlin regional association, not to the Greens in Munich and North Rhine-Westphalia. And in Berlin, a prominent Green party also supported the application: the mayor of Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Jörn Oltmann, sits on the local application board.

SPD top candidate and state leader Steffen Krach is also a clear supporter. However, at the most recent SPD state party conference in May, around a third of the delegates opposed the application. The result of an evaluation of the applications presented on Tuesday resulted in a further setback for Berlin's ambitions. Munich and the Rhine-Ruhr region received the grade “very good”, Berlin only received a “good”.

For Berlin's Olympic representative Kaweh Niroomand, the highly successful full-time manager of the German volleyball champions BR Volleys, this assessment is less disadvantageous than Eralp's statement. “Within 45 seconds,” the Left Party politician “wiped the entire application off the table,” he told the German Press Agency. “If this is the new way of dealing with people who think differently in the city and is so disrespectful towards other people who may have a different opinion, I think that is a very dangerous development in the near future,” said Niroomand.

Eralp and other Olympic opponents such as the NOlympia alliance had criticized the application costs - stated by the Senate at 6 million euros - and the still unclear financing of the costs of hosting the games. In addition, an application is not justifiable for the opponents as long as there are unrenovated gyms and swimming pools in Berlin.

Niroomand countered this in a taz interview: “If we don’t do the Olympics, a lot less will happen.” He's not saying that the Olympics will solve all problems. “But we can use it to clear up the renovation backlog, we can bring flow into it.” According to Niroomand, hosting the Olympic Games would cost the state of Berlin “well under a billion euros” and, in addition to renovated sports facilities, would also provide improved infrastructure.

Which venue the DOSB delegates will choose should be decided on Saturday afternoon. DOSB boss Torsten Weikert and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier are expected to announce the voting results. The International Olympic Committee will decide whether there will actually be an Olympic Games in Germany from 2036 - based on current knowledge, 2029. The next two summer games are in Los Angeles and Brisbane, Australia.