Exclusive: Hamburg Senator sees 2024 Olympic bid as means to present "new" Germany

Michael Neumann believes the Hamburg 2024 Olympic bid will held to present a new Germany

Hamburg's Senator for the Interior and Sport, Michael Neumann, believes his city's bid for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics will showcase a "new" Germany, which would be very different from previous Games there.

The official, here as the city's representative introducing the bid to the Olympic Movement a month after Hamburg was selected as the German candidate ahead of the capital, Berlin, claimed that, while everyone knows the Germans will be able to organise a Games, they are keen to convince people they can "hold a party" as well.

"The bid will be a great catalyst for so many other things," he told insidethegames.

"Not only the investment and infrastructure but for our heart and for the opportunity to present Germany as a new country and a totally different hosting city and nation from Berlin and Munich in former times.

"People know we can organise, but we want to show that we can be fun and organise a party as well.

"We are a more pluralistic society, integrating a lot of different values, and, like the 2006 [FIFA] World Cup' this is a chance to show the world that this Germany is a different Germany, friendly and full of freedom."

A potential German Olympics would seek to showoff a changed nation in the same way the 2006 FIFA World Cup did ©Bongarts/Getty Images

A referendum is due to be held later this year before the bid is confirmed, but, if the city is ultimately successful, it would become the third German city to host the Summer Games, after Berlin in 1936 and Munich in 1972.

Italian capital Rome and Boston are other cities to have already confirmed bids, while Paris is set to launch a bid for what would be the centenary of the 1924 Olympics in the French capital.

Neumann was unconcerned about contending with experienced Olympic hosts, and well known European capitals like Rome and Paris, outlining how Hamburg is a growing city with a bid which strongly conforms with the reformist zeal of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Agenda 2020 reform process.

Neumann outlined the strong nature of support in the city, which has reached 68 per cent support.

He claimed if they can push this up to 70 per cent, this would "be a very strong vote in the international struggle", particularly "coming from a country with as much historical scepticism surrounding Olympic bids as Germany".

Trade Unions and political parties have both pledged their support, he claimed, while even environmental groups are broadly supportive.

Neumann admitted, however, that while responding to a phone call for a survey is one thing, persuading people to physically vote in the referendum will be harder.

This helps explain why it has been difficult for referendums to be successful, with the most recent one in Munich over whether to bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics among those to have failed.

While several Town Hall style meetings are being held in order to drum up support, modern social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, are also being utilised so as to encourage younger voters.