Berlin presents bid to rehost Olympics with 100th anniversary of 1936 Games looming
FILE - In this Friday, Oct. 5, 2018 photo people walk down the stairs in the stands of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, file)
FILE - In this Friday, Oct. 5, 2018 photo people walk down the stairs in the stands of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, file)
BERLIN (AP) — Berlin formally presented its bid to rehost the Olympics on Tuesday in the same stadium where Jesse Owens starred during the 1936 Games under the Nazis.
Berlin sports minister Iris Spranger said the city wants to put on a sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2036, 2040 or 2044, making use of existing sports venues.
Advertisement
But her announced plans to include the former airport Tempelhof are likely to be resisted by locals who already opposed any development of the popular city park in a 2014 referendum.
Spranger envisaged beach volleyball at the Brandenburg Gate, and water sports in Grünau, a riverside locality which also staged water sports in 1936.
Otherwise, Spranger gave few details during the presentation, saying the bid was still at concept phase.
'You'll have to be patient,' she told a journalist.
Berlin's bid — titled 'Berlin+' with support from the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Schleswig-Holstein — is to be presented to the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) before an end-of-month deadline.
Advertisement
It will be up to the DOSB to decide which Games to bid for. Los Angeles is hosting the 2028 Olympics and Brisbane the 2032 Olympics, so the next available edition will be 2036, the 100th anniversary of the Berlin Games.
The DOSB previously said a German bid for 2040 was also possible.
'I believe that the 2036 Games, regardless of where they take place, will also focus on the Nazi Games of 1936. That's part of history and attention will be paid to it,' Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner said. 'I have to tell you, I'm proud to be the governing mayor of a city that has changed in the last 100 years, that we no longer stand for dictatorship, exclusion, and mass violence, but that Berlin is now a cosmopolitan, international metropolis, a colorful, diverse city.'
Wegner said it was 'important for Germany to make a bid. We're making an offer here today.'
Advertisement
Wegner, Spranger, and the governors from the other four states made their presentation in the same battle-scarred stadium, Berlin's Olympiastadion, where Adolf Hitler watched Owens, the Black American athlete, win four gold medals in the 1936 Games, dealing a blow to Hitler's notions of racial superiority.
Hitler was personally involved in the design and construction of the 100,000-seat track-and-field stadium after the Nazis assumed power in 1933, two years after the Games were awarded to the city.
___
AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox Sports
44 minutes ago
- Fox Sports
Carlos Alcaraz wins French Open final in five sets after saving 3 match points against Jannik Sinner
Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Carlos Alcaraz wins French Open final in five sets after saving 3 match points against Jannik Sinner. in this topic
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump's new travel ban set to take effect amid escalating tension over immigration enforcement
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's new ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens from 12 mainly African and Middle Eastern countries is set to take effect Monday amid escalating tension over the president's unprecedented campaign of immigration enforcement. The new proclamation, which Trump signed on Wednesday, applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also imposes heightened restrictions on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela who are outside the U.S. and don't hold a valid visa. The new ban does not revoke visas previously issued to people from countries on the list, according to guidance issued Friday to all U.S. diplomatic missions. However, unless an applicant meets narrow criteria for an exemption to the ban, his or her application will be rejected starting Monday. Travelers with previously issued visas should still be able to enter the U.S. even after the ban takes effect. Haitian-American Elvanise Louis-Juste, who was at the airport Sunday in Newark, New Jersey, awaiting a flight to her home state of Florida, said many Haitians wanting to come to the U.S. are simply seeking to escape violence and unrest in their country. 'I have family in Haiti, so it's pretty upsetting to see and hear,' Louis-Juste, 23, said of the travel ban. 'I don't think it's a good thing. I think it's very upsetting.' Many immigration experts say the new ban is designed to beat any court challenge by focusing on the visa application process and appears more carefully crafted than a hastily written executive order during Trump's first term that denied entry to citizens of mainly Muslim countries. In a video posted Wednesday on social media, Trump said nationals of countries included in the ban pose 'terrorism-related' and 'public-safety' risks, as well as risks of overstaying their visas. He also said some of these countries had 'deficient' screening and vetting or have historically refused to take back their citizens. His findings rely extensively on an annual Homeland Security report about tourists, businesspeople and students who overstay U.S. visas and arrive by air or sea, singling out countries with high percentages of nationals who remain after their visas expired. Trump also tied the new ban to a terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. The man charged in the attack is from Egypt, a country that is not on Trump's restricted list. U.S. officials say he overstayed a tourist visa. The ban was quickly denounced by groups that provide aid and resettlement help to refugees. 'This policy is not about national security — it is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States,' said Abby Maxman, president of Oxfam America, a nonprofit international relief organization. Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro's government condemned the travel ban, characterizing it in a statement as a 'stigmatization and criminalization campaign' against Venezuelans.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
"He just came down and hit the next 5 shots in a row" - Magic Johnson on the trash talk moment that pushed Jordan to go all out in famous Dream Team practice
"He just came down and hit the next 5 shots in a row" - Magic Johnson on the trash talk moment that pushed Jordan to go all out in famous Dream Team practice originally appeared on Basketball Network. Various stories have been told of that legendary scrimmage in Monte Carlo, the kind of mythic run that sits somewhere between lore and history in the collective memory of basketball fans. It wasn't televised, and there were no fans, just the best players on Earth pushing each other past the edge of greatness inside a gym overseas in the summer of 1992. Advertisement And yet, despite the absence of cameras, that practice became one of the most documented off-record games the sport has ever known. Jordan's fire From the lens of Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, simple trash talk ignited something and made the scrimmage highly competitive. "One thing I did that got Michael Jordan going is we were up about 10 points, and I went over and said, 'Michael, if you don't turn into Air Jordan, we gonna blow you out,'" Johnson said. "What did I say that for?… He just came down and hit the next five shots in a row, and it was amazing." The gravity of that moment didn't exist in isolation. It was a byproduct of a genius move from head coach Chuck Daly, who sensed something missing from the Dream Team's early tune-ups. The players were already dominating their Olympic warm-up opponents. Advertisement The solution was to create internal competition. Daly drew a line: East vs. West. And the atmosphere in the Monte Carlo gym shifted. The teams were stacked with Hall of Famers: Johnson and the superstars from the West, and Michael Jordan and the superstars from the East. There were no fans in the stands, but it might as well have been Game 7 of the Finals in there. This was about supremacy — within the squad, within the league, within the era. Jordan had a personal edge walking into the scrimmage, and it wasn't just Johnson. It hadn't been long since the 1992 NBA Finals, where the Chicago Bulls faced Clyde Drexler and the Portland Trail Blazers. Much had been made of Drexler as Jordan's equal; even Johnson had publicly praised the matchup beforehand. Jordan responded with a 35-point first half in Game 1, including six 3-pointers, then a record. That wasn't forgotten. So there was residue when Drexler lined up opposite Jordan in the Dream Team's intrasquad game. This was just one of the number of personal rivalries on show in that scrimmage. Taking over Before the Olympics and even before the scrimmage tipped, Jordan had approached Johnson alongside Larry Bird — the twin pillars of the NBA throughout the 1980s — and told them that there was a new sheriff in town and wanted to walk the talk. Advertisement "I got a chance to really see Air Jordan," Johnson said. Because once that trash talk hit him, Jordan erupted. He came with precision executions, rising against the hand, backed by a will that had decided not to be mocked. By the end of the run, Jordan had turned a 10-point deficit into a lead. He had orchestrated stops, called out coverages, and even demanded who he would guard. The gym fell silent in those stretches, not from awe but from sheer focus. Players like Charles Barkley would later say it was the best basketball they'd ever been part of. The East vs West divide had faded. It was now Jordan vs everyone, and he was winning. Coach Daly let it all happen without interruption. He didn't blow the whistle. He didn't stop the run. Because even he knew something rare was unfolding. That 1992 practice became a time capsule of the game's transition and the future dominance of the Dream Team. Advertisement Related: Magic Johnson says Dream Team started his friendship with Michael Jordan: "I could throw it anywhere, he was going to go get it and dunk it" This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 8, 2025, where it first appeared.
