BERLIN - Hamburg's hopes of hosting the 2024 Olympic Games moved a step closer to reality on Saturday when the German Olympic Sports Federation (DSOB) voted unanimously to rubber-stamp their bid.
German Olympic Sports Confederation's president announces Hamburg is the recommended candidate city for the 2024 Summer Games in Frankfurt am Main on March 16, 2015
After a select committee announced last Monday that the Hanseatic City had seen off a rival proposal from Berlin, Hamburg's bid was unanimously approved by all 410 DSOB members at Saturday's Extraordinary General Meeting in Frankfurt.
Cities have until September 15 to formally enter the race and so far Boston and Rome have officially declared, although Paris is also expected to announce a bid.
"There is no need to fear Boston, Rome or Paris. As of today, I say "let them be afraid of Hamburg," boasted Germany's Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere and Hamburg are poised to apply to host the 2028 games should the 2024 bid fail.
"Whoever wants to beat Germany's bid will have to offer a lot."
The final hurdle Hamburg's bid still needs to clear is a local referendum in September.
The organisers behind the Hamburg bid are mindful that Munich's plans to host the 2022 Winter Games were scuppered when locals in Bavaria voted against when a local referendum was held in November 2013.
According to the latest opinion poll, 64 percent of the Hamburg population are in favour of hosting the Olympics with a 50 percent positive vote needed to carry a referendum.
An Olympic Games has not been hosted by Germany since the Munich summer games of 1972.
That was marred by tragedy when 11 Israeli athletes, a German policeman and five members of the radical Palestinian group known as Black September, who took the Israelis hostage in the Athletes Village, although most of the deaths occurred at a nearby airport.
Germany has had six unsuccessful bids including Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1960, Berchtesgaden (1992) and Munich (2018 and 2022) for the Winter Olympics and Berlin (2000) and Leipzig (2012) for the summer games.