United Berlin Opens Bid for 2000 Olympics

Berlin’s united government launched its bid today to stage the 2000 Olympic Games, with plans to have all venues within a 6.2-mile radius around the Brandenburg Gate.

“Berlin, that for so many years was a symbol of division, is now the symbol of peaceful reunification and the nonviolent solution of global conflicts,” Mayor Walter Momper said in announcing the bid.

“2000 is a magic number that will fire up the imagination of many people.”

The bid first has to be accepted by the National Olympic Committee before it can be presented to the International Olympic Committee.

Although several other German cities have expressed interest in staging the 2000 Summer Games, they have said they will support Berlin’s bid.

IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said last January that Berlin would be a very strong candidate.

The German national committee will make its decision in April, 1991. The IOC will award the 2000 Olympics in 1993.

The idea to stage the Olympics in Berlin originated with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who proposed that both sides of the then-divided city share the Games.

Berlin staged the 1936 Games, which Adolf Hitler used for Nazi propaganda.

Berlin Deputy Mayor Tino Schwierzina, East Berlin mayor until unification on Oct. 3, said Berlin would refurbish the 1936 stadium--where black American athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals, shattering two Olympic records and dramatically repudiating Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy.