Citizens in the southern German
state of Bavaria voted against a bid by Munich to host the 2022
Winter Olympics, two years after the city made a failed attempt
to stage the 2018 edition.
The majority of voters in Munich, the Alpine resort of
Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the districts of Berchtesgadener Land
and Traunstein rejected a potential bid in a referendum
yesterday, according to preliminary results published by the
city of Munich last night.
About 1.3 million Bavarians were asked to vote after
officials revised the concept submitted for the 2018 games.
Munich’s try for 2018 was beaten by the South Korean city of
Pyeongchang. That Munich bid had overcome resistance from local
groups, who cited cost and environmental concerns as reasons for
their opposition.
Yesterday’s result in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where
citizens voted 51.6 percent against competing for the 2022
Olympics, was the reverse of a plebiscite in May 2011 in which
residents supported a plan to host a 2018 edition that purported
to be environmentally friendly.
Other cities competing for the 2022 competition are Oslo,
Lviv in Ukraine, and Beijing. The U.S. and Switzerland as well
as the Spanish city of Barcelona have opted out of bids,
according to Nolympia, a German group of environmentalists,
left-leaning political parties and Attac, an activist group that
campaigned against a submission.
“Olympic winter games, as a result of their sheer size,
can neither be sustainable nor ‘green’,” the group said in a
statement on its website. “They are a mega-event that represent
a massive invasion of nature and the cultural landscapes of the
Alpine region and which carry unimaginable social and financial
risks.”
The scale of the rejection came as a surprise, Peter Schlickenrieder, vice-president of the German Ski Association,
said in an interview on Deutschlandradio Kultur today. A
“climate of fear” contributed to the opposition, he said.
Editors: Alex Duff, Tariq Panja
To contact the reporter on this story:
Angela Cullen in Frankfurt at
acullen8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Christopher Elser at
celser@bloomberg.net