There were sad faces at the "Watch Party" in Cologne, and in Baden-Baden, North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst appeared to be a fair loser. Germany is not entering the race with Cologne-Rhine-Ruhr, but with Munich as a candidate for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2036, 2040 or 2044.
«We have come up with a great concept. We were ahead in four of seven evaluation categories, and in the overall evaluation, Munich was a step ahead,” said Wüst. He is still very proud of the path we have taken together. Wüst and his colleagues now want to support Munich. “We want to bring the Olympic Games to Germany together. That is our joint task, we are now fully committed to it,” he said.
What does the defeat mean for state politics?
Rarely enough: When it came to the Olympic bid, most parties in North Rhine-Westphalia pulled together. Politicians had also hoped for an image gain and an upswing for the federal state, which has been struggling with structural change for decades. Only the AfD had voted early against “tax waste for dreaming”. The implementation of the council decisions as well as the concept and application campaign alone cost around 15 million euros.
Will the end of the Olympic dream hurt the Prime Minister?
Wüst had gone incredibly far out of his way to apply for the Olympics. There was hardly any other topic that the CDU politician had spoken about more often and more passionately in recent months and did not skimp on superlatives: “With Cologne-Rhine-Ruhr it would be the biggest games of all time” and the possible ticket sales would be a “world record”. This bubble has now burst.
But Wüst won't have more than a scratch in the paint. This cannot weaken the high political market value of the 51-year-old, who is currently hotly traded as a “reserve chancellor” - especially since the SPD opposition leader was also in North Rhine-Westphalia for the Olympics.
What does the end of the Olympics mean for the city of Cologne’s plans?
A lot was planned in Cologne as the central city of the application. The city had planned to hold the athletics competitions in a temporary stadium in the newly planned Cologne-Kreuzfeld district. An Olympic and Paralympic Village for athletes should also be built there.
The interior of the athletics stadium was to become a public park after the games. The then former grandstands were planned as “areas for living, education, social infrastructure as well as sports and leisure activities”, as can be seen from the concept for the application for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. After the games, the village was to create housing for 10,000 people with around 3,500 residential units.
The city says that the urban development plans for Cologne-Kreuzfeld are not fundamentally invalid due to the cancellation of the application. There is still the possibility of “further elaborating the stable basic framework of the existing urban planning for the new Kreuzfeld district and converting it into binding planning law through the preparation of development plans,” as a press spokesman for the city of Cologne announced in response to a dpa request.
Mayor Torsten Burmester (SPD) emphasized after the decision in Baden-Baden: “This path clearly does not end for Cologne today. The application triggered something in our city. It has brought people together, created new partnerships, generated ideas and created a spirit of optimism for sport. This is exactly what we want to preserve.”
How does the end of the Olympics affect tourism in North Rhine-Westphalia?
For tourism in North Rhine-Westphalia, the end of the Olympics means one thing above all: “a missed opportunity”. This is how Tonia Haag, press spokeswoman for the state tourism association Tourismus NRW, puts it. The Olympic and Paralympic Games on the Rhine and Ruhr could have brought together people with different interests and backgrounds from all over the world in the region. In addition, the tourism association could have advertised North Rhine-Westphalia as a travel destination around the competitions and shown what excursion and leisure options are available outside the competition venues.
It was also hoped that the games would have long-term effects, explains Haag. North Rhine-Westphalia would have become better known among people around the world, “not only as a great sports destination, but also as a travel destination worth experiencing”. This really big international stage will no longer exist after the Olympics are over.
