Olympic Games 2024: Hamburg Residents Vote against Hosting Summer Olympics

Hamburg residents have voted against hosting the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Hamburg was one of five cities left in the running, alongside Rome, Paris, Budapest and Los Angeles.

However, 51.7% of residents of the city and nearby Kiel, where sailing events would have taken place, voted no in a referendum on November 29.

German Olympics officials had picked Hamburg as their preferred candidate city ahead of Berlin.

Hamburg’s mayor Olaf Scholz said: “That’s a decision that we didn’t want, but it’s clear.”

Germany has not hosted the Games since 1972 in Munich.

Critics of the plan said it was wasteful, at a cost of €11.2 billion ($11.9 billion), only a small fraction of which had been promised by city authorities.

In 2013, Munich residents also voted against the Olympics, turning down the chance to host the 2022 Winter Games.

In July 2015, the city of Boston decided to withdraw from the race to be host for 2024 amid a lack of public support.

The winning city will be selected in September 2017.