Hamburg Close to Establishing Olympic Bid Team

(ATR) ATR understands that the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) and Hamburg 2024 officials are close to establishing the bid team.

Discussions took place at a meeting last week of a working group comprising DOSB and Hamburg representatives.

"We discussed a range of topics from founding a bid company to communications to international questions," DOSB spokesman tells ATR.

The bid team, its structure and key officials are expected to be unveiled in the coming weeks. The bid leader is still subject to discussion.

Two weeks after the DOSB general assembly ratified a decision of the German Olympic commmittee’s executive board to put forward the Hanseatic city over Berlin, Hamburg 2024 is making swift progress in other areas.

The DOSB has announced the evaluation commission which will assess the best sailing venue for the bid. Three cities are in the race – Rostock-Warnemünde, Lübeck/Travemünde and Kiel.

The commission, which includes DOSB officials Bernhard Schwank, Christian Sachs and Hans Heinrich, will visit the cities April 9 and 10. The selection will be made later this month.

DOSB president Alfons Hörmann stressed last month that Germany will use the IOC’s Agenda 2020 reforms to deliver a compact, economically efficient Olympics.

A Hamburg bid spokesman told ATR the bid was promising "a transparent process from planning to execution," including meticulous costing of the Games.

The Olympics would be in the heart of the city with short travel distances for athletes. It is centered around a compact venue plan and urban regeneration, ambitions said to be modeled on London’s achievements in renewing the east end of the British capital for the 2012 Olympics.

A DOSB poll released last month revealed that 64 percent of Hamburg residents backed the city’s bid. A referendum will be held on the bid ahead of the IOC’s Sept. 15 deadline for 2024 Olympic bid applications.

Boston and Rome are the only other declared bidders for the 2024 Games. But Paris is expected to join the race, while Baku and Doha may also be interested.

The IOC will select the 2024 host at the 2017 Session in Lima, Peru.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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