1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites

Hamburg: Hooked on Olympic spirit?

Alexander Drechsel / jhFebruary 24, 2015

Politicians, Artists and plenty of organisations want to bring the Olympic and Paralympic Games to Hamburg in the summer of 2024. The question is, do the ordinary residents of Germany's second-largest city feel the same?

https://p.dw.com/p/1Egef
Hamburg Olympia olympisches Alsterfeuer
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Heimken

The people of Hamburg are said to be understated. They don't bound around with swagger, but when asked about Germany's second-biggest city, local patriotism pours out. With both the Elbe and Alster rivers, rolling parks, trendy white houses and the abundant nightlife of the famous Reeperbahn, people from Hamburg are proud of their old harbor and trade town, and they are not shy about it, either.

Hamburg is a city in which more than 80 percent of its population are said to play sport. Germany's most successful hockey team are based here and with water comprising eight percent of metropolitan area, sailors, rowers and kayakers are ingrained in the city's image. On the trotting track, in Derby Park and in suburban farms, dressage riders and show jumpers can often be seen in training. Even if the city's football teams - HSV and St. Pauli - are short of recent success, the Olympic bid is a chance for Hamburg to show the world they deserve the chance to host the biggest sporting competition of them all.

Hamburg wants 2024 Olympics

To help achieve this end a broad group of politicians, economists, sporting associations and creative artists have been petitioning for the 2024 Olympics for the past year under the motto: "We are hooked, because only Hamburg can win."

Hamburg Kurzstreckenrudern auf der Alster
Rowers on Hamburg's Alster RiverImage: picture-alliance/dpa/U. Perrey

One of these campaigners is Corny Littmann, the co-founder of the Schmidt Theater on the Reeperbahn and the former St. Pauli president. He points out that some of the traditional animosities in the city can be overcome.

"The creative artists in Hamburg have surprisingly shown unity like never before," said Littmann. "The theater groups, as well as the musicians, have all agreed with one another that they are desperate to see the Olympic Games in Hamburg, under the motto: 'Stage free for the Olympics.'"

However, the stage curtain is still drawn as Hamburg find themselves competing with Berlin to decide who will be Germany's candidate city. On March 16, the president of Germany's Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) will announce which will be put forward to the IOC and so all signs of support from the inhabitants of each city will be crucial in the decision-making process.

Of course, Germany are keen to avoid repeating the embarrassing climb-down of 2012, when Munich submitted a bid for the 2022 winter games only for the people of the city to vote against the construction of Olympic facilities.

Organizers shold have been cheered therefore by the sight last weekend of 20,000 people descending on the riverbank of the Inner Alster lake to light candles, lanterns and torches to show their passion for the Olympics.

Fear of high prices

And yet there is significant opposition in Hamburg to staging the games.

Hamburg's main qualms are with the lack of clarity surrounding costs, as well as the inevitable politics that will arrive with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Just as it did in Munich, a "NOlympia" group has launched in opposition to the 2024 bid, with co-founder Nicole Vrenegor expressing alarm that the Hamburg council hasn't received any exact figures from the Senate.

"The Senate are currently refusing to publish figures," she said. "I doubt that two billion would be enough, because one Olympic stadium alone costs 300 million euro. The costs could explode to a billion, like they did in Sydney (for the 2000 summer games)."

Computeranimation Olympiastadion Hamburg Kleiner Grasbrook
The Olympic village is expected to be built in the harborImage: Computeranimation: Gerkan, Marg und Partner (gmp), Büro Gärtner und Christ/dpa

Olympics or city development?

Critics have been citing the Elbe Philharmonic Hall as the example. The concert venue built halfway between the city center and the harbor was meant to cost 77 million euros ($87 million), but the costs have risen ten-fold to 789 million euros.

Hamburg's Senator of the Interior, Michael Neumann, has said the town planners had learned from that overrun, and that there is no chance of a repeat when it comes to the construction of Olympic venues. He did however add that it was difficult to give a price breakdown of the costs for hosting the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Hamburg. "Is the Olympic village, one that we will be building for 100 years because people will live there for 100 years, also on the list of Olympic costs? Or are the Olympics nothing more than the reason to finally build more flats in Hamburg?"

However calculated, the 2024 Olympics will cost a great deal. Should Hamburg win the bid, the city is full of expectation. The entire harbor area, only a ten-minute walk from the town hall, will have to be rebuilt. Harbor businesses would be relocated and in their place - next to the Olympic village for 15,000 athletes and the 70,000-seater Olympic stadium - a gymnastics and basketball arena as well as an Olympic swimming pool would be built. After the Games, the village would be converted into 3,000 flats, the stadium reduced by 20,000 seats and the arena converted into a terminal for cruise liners.

No more than 10 kilometers

Hamburg Club an der Alster
Hamburg is Germany's hockey capitalImage: Imago/Tischler

Were the 2024 Games to come to Hamburg, existing venues would also be used: St. Pauli's football stadium would host hockey, while indoor halls will allow Judo, boxing as well as wrestling, badminton, table tennis and volleyball. At Hamburg's Rothenbaum, tennis will live again. Show jumping and dressage will take place in the Derby Park. Rowers should be able to use an arm of the Elbe, while sailors will have the Baltic Sea in Lübeck, Kiel or Rostock.

At the moment, the 41 Olympic summer sports will take place in nearly 20 different locations. Aside from sailing, all other competitions should take place no further than 10 kilometers from the Olympic village. A number of the venues are supposed to be accessible by foot.

For the arrival of the athletes, the planners have thought of something special: Using harbor ferries, the competitors will wind their way into the city down the Elbe before being greeted by fans on the riverside. The idea came from the 2012 summer games, when a large part of the German Olympic team left London for Germany on the ship "MS Deutschland" before arriving in Hamburg for an unforgettable welcome.