BERLIN -- The city of Berlin Thursday officially bid for the right to stage the Summer Olympic Games in the year 2000 as the 'crowning gesture' of German reunification.
Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen handed over his city's official bid for the Olympics to Willi Daume, president of the German National Olympic Committee.
The NOC will study the bid, then put it to the International Olympic Committee, which is to make its final decision in September 1993 in Monte Carlo.
Berlin hosted the 'Nazi' Olympics of 1936 and if its bid was successful it would join Paris, Los Angeles and London as the fourth city to host two summer Olympics. Germany last hosted the Olympics in 1972 when Munich was the venue.
Berlin's presentation emphasizes the combination of sport and culture, and Diepgen hopes the entire city will profit from the Games.
'Berlin has become a worldwide symbol for the overcoming of long, great political conflicts,' Diepgen said. 'Awarding the Games to Berlin in the center of Europe would be the crowning gesture of the reunification of Germany.'
The bid calls for new roads to be built, and the Olympic Village would provide housing for 15,000 people after the Games.
The old Olympic stadium would be completely renovated, and four new arenas are to be set up.
'We have no time to waste, nine years is not a long time,' Diepgen said.
The Olympics will cost an estimated $3.3 billion, coming from the the state of Berlin, the local industry and the federal government in Bonn.
The mayor already is looking forward to Saturday, July 22, 2000, the date on which the Games would be opened in Berlin. But first Berlin faces tough competition from Beijing, Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Sydney, Toronto, Manchester or London in England and a not-yet named Moroccan city.
Berlin has at least one prominent supporter. On June 12, 1987, then U.S. president Ronald Reagan suggested Berlin should host the 2000 Games.
