Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

HITLER

Race heats up for German Olympic bid spot

Berlin has said it is ready to put up €2.5 million in its bid to host the 2024 or 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, in hopes that the German Olympic Committee (DOSB) chooses the capital over Hamburg.

Published: 9 February 2015 08:47 CET
Race heats up for German Olympic bid spot
Photo: DPA

 The Berliner Morgenpost reported on Sunday that only €1 million will come from city funds, with the remainder made up from funds that already exist in the former of the "Be Berlin" public relations campaign.

The rest of the money will come from private firms, such as Wall, which has already said it would provide billboards at no cost to the city in its bidding hopes.

Michael Vesper, head of the DOSB, told Focus magazine that his committee will announce their choice on March 21 in Frankfurt, although a poll is being conducted in February that could determine the winner.

"We'll then be able to see reliable figures and see where each city stands. Both cities could be the host," Vesper said in an interview published on Saturday.

According to Berlin senate documents, Berlin has already splashed out €234,000 on an ad campaign under the slogan "We want the games!", among other promotional items.   

Already, the slogan can be found on Berlin busses, in ad spots on radio and television, as well as on Air Berlin planes and Tegel Airport itself.

An Air Berlin plane with

Gregor Gysi, a leader of Die Linke (The Left), party, told the Berliner Zeitung last week that he is hoping for a successful Berlin bid as a way to refresh the capital's image.

"I really wish that there will be other pictures of Berlin and Olympics than those of Adolf Hitler," said Gysi, referring to the last time the German capital hosted the games, in 1936, when Hitler and the National Socialist (Nazi) party was in power.

"Everytime Berlin and the Olympics are mentioned together, these old pictures get pulled out again: Hitler on the stage. There must be something new, something different," Gysi said.

"My God, Just think of the (2006) Wold Cup! Those are the pictures we need!"

Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympic Games. Photo: DPA

The Berlin bid committee has already said it would use the Olympic stadium, built for Hitler's games, as the main venue, as well as several other venues from those games nearly 80 years ago.

Tegel would also be a site that would see construction, providing the new airport, the beleaguered Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER) actually manages to open.

Hamburg's bid has already promised a new Olympic Stadium, which would see its seating reduced following the games to ensure its future use. Most of the OIympic sites are planned for the Kleiner Grasbrook area.

Munich was the last German city to host the Olympics, in 1972.

The IOC will announce the host city for the 2024 games in 2017. 

SEE ALSO: Germans eager to host the games

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

SPORT

The French Paralympic star who survived war, grief and mutilation

The Paralympics is full of stories of disabled athletes overcoming the odds to achieve sporting greatness but few bear the trauma of Jean-Baptiste Alaize.

Published: 28 August 2020 10:06 CEST
The French Paralympic star who survived war, grief and mutilation
Jean-Baptiste Alaize training in Antibes. All photos: AFP

The 29-year-old French sprinter and long-jumper, who features in Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix released on Wednesday, was just three years old when he lost his right leg.

Not by accident or illness but by the brutal hack of a machete.

A child caught up in the civil war in Burundi in October 1994, he watched as his mother was beheaded.

“For years, every time I closed my eyes, I had flashes. I saw my mother being executed in front of me,” he tells AFP after a training session in Antibes, running his finger across his throat.

The killers left the Tutsi boy for dead. Alaize carries a large scar on his back but he was also slashed across the neck, right arm and right leg by his Hutu neighbours.

He woke up in hospital several days later, alive but missing the lower part of his right leg which had had to be amputated.

“With my mother, we ran, we ran, but we didn't manage to run far,” he says. “We were executed 40 metres from the house.”

A decade later, after coming to France in 1998 and being adopted by a French family, he joined the athletics club in Drôme.

Fitted with a prosthetic limb, he discovered that running gave him his first night without a nightmare since the attack.

“From my first steps on the track, I had the impression that I had to run as long as possible, so as not to be caught,” says Alaize who now lives in Miami.

“I remember like it was yesterday my first night after this session, it was… wow! I had cleared my mind. I was free.

“My energy, my hatred, were focussed on the track. I understood that sport could be my therapy.”

He tried horseback riding and enjoyed it, reaching level six, out of seven, until he pulled the plug.

“It was my horse that let off steam and not me,” he laughs.

The psychologist did not work out either.

“She made me make circles and squares. After a few sessions I told her that I wanted to change my method.”

However he did click with his school physical education teacher, who directed him to athletics after he had anchored his team to a spectacular “comeback” win in a 4×100 metre relay.

His classmates had no idea he was an amputee. He had hidden it to avoid teasing and more racial abuse.

“I was called 'bamboula', dirty negro, the monkey. It was hard.”

Fortunately, the Alaize family, who adopted him after he had spent five years in a Bujumbura orphanage where his father had abandoned him, gave Jean-Baptiste a base and a home that he had not had for years.

“When I arrived here I didn't know it was possible,” he said.

“I had lost that side, to be loved. I still can't understand how racism can set in, when I see my parents who are white, and I am a black child… they loved me like a child.”

His parents, Robert and Daniele, had already adopted a Hutu child from Rwanda, renamed Julien.

John-Baptist was originally called Mugisha. It means “the lucky child” which is not quite how things worked out. His new family name, though, suits him better. Alaize is a pun in French for 'a l'aise' – at ease.

The French disabled sports federation spotted the prodigy, and he began collecting his first trophies, including four junior world titles at long jump, three of them with world records.

“It was starting to change my life and I was happy to represent France,” he says.

He went to the Paralympic Games in London (2012) and Rio (2016), where he finished fifth in the long jump, just five centimetres short of the bronze medal.

Now armed with his state-of-the-art prosthesis, which he nicknamed Bugatti, he was dreaming of taking a step up at Tokyo 2020 and going home to France with a medal but the postponement of the Games has decimated his sponsorships.

“I'm still looking to compete at Tokyo 2021 or 2022 and Paris 2024,” he says.

“If I don't succeed, I will have to turn the page which would be sad.”

He hopes that Rising Phoenix will raise his profile and maybe attract some sponsors.

The documentary's producer Ian Bonhote is in no doubt that Alaize's star is rising.

“He bursts through the screen. His story will resonate,” he says.

“The nine athletes in our documentary all have different backgrounds, but none survived what Jean-Baptiste suffered. His disability was imposed on him in such a savage and violent way.”

Rising Pheonix is available now to view on Netflix.

SHOW COMMENTS