Hamburg residents ‘No’ to hosting future summer Olympics

Article posted by Coliseum, June 4^th, 2026

Image: Volksparkstadion, Reinhard Kraasch, CC-BY-SA 4.0 DE

The Hamburg (Germany) residents have voted against a future summer Olympic bid for the Northern German city in a referendum held on May 31^st.

‘yahoo!news’ stated that with the results still being counted the State Electoral Chief Oliver Rudolf said a majority of the participants opposed the bid to stage the 2036, 2040 or 2044 Summer Olympics in Hamburg.

Around 1.3 million people from the age of 16 were eligible to vote with turnout at 49.5 percent.

Supporters of the future Summer Olympics effort highlighted the use of the existing venues, an expected profit and an important boost for the city’s infrastructure. The critics pointed out uncertainties about the costs arguing that the money should be spent on more pressing projects.

Hamburg was competing with Munich, Berlin and a Cologne-led Rhine-Ruhr Region bid to become the German candidate for the 2036, 2040 or 2044 Summer Olympics.

‘yahoo!news’ further stated that the decision on who will bid and for which year will be made by the German Olympic Sports Confederation on September 26^th but the May 31^st vote officially takes Hamburg out of the running.

Munich’s bid was backed by a 66.4 percent majority in a referendum and Cologne/Rhine-Ruhr by 66 percent. In Berlin, the local Parliament approved the bid.

In 2015, Hamburg’s plan to bid for the 2024 Olympics was also stopped via a referendum.

Germany hosted the summer Olympics in Berlin in 1936 and in Munich in 1972.

The German Olympic Sports Confederation (GER) was founded on May 20^th, 2006 following a merger of the Deutscher Sportbund (DSB) and the Nationales Olympisches Komitee für Deutschland (NOK). Seated in Frankfurt am Main, it represents 89,000 clubs and 27,000,000 members, about a third of the population of Germany.

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