Hamburg was on Saturday formally chosen as Germany's bidder for the 2024 Olympics, with the aim to bring the Games to the country for the first time in 52 years.
The northern port city was unanimously chosen over capital Berlin after an extraordinary general assembly of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) approved an according recommendation made Monday by its executives.
Hamburg will face confirmed bidders Boston and Rome, and others including Paris, Istanbul and Doha are also expected to join the race. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) elects the 2024 host city at its 2017 Session in Lima.
Germany has not hosted the Olympics since the 1972 Summer Games in Munich. It also staged the 1936 Games in Berlin (summer) and Garmisch-Partenkirchen (winter).
Berlin failed to land the 2000 Summer Games and Leipzig - chosen over Hamburg - the 2012 edition. Berchtesgaden and Munich also had unsuccessful winter bids for 1992 and 2018 respectively.
The bid must be submitted to the IOC by September 15 but needs to clear one further hurdle in the form of a referendum. Hamburg had a support rate of 64 per cent in a recent survey but success is not a foregone conclusion as a another Munich bid for the 2022 Winter Games was stopped by the locals two years ago.
Hamburg mayor Olaf Scholz told the DOSB assembly in Frankfurt's St Paul's Church "it is time that the Olympics come to Germany.
"It can not be that we are enthusiastic about watching the Olympics and don't dare to organize them ourselves."
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said: "We will have a strong and competitive bid. We have a lot to offer. There is no need to be afraid of other bidders such as Rome, Paris or Istanbul."
DOSB president Alfons Hoermann called the bid - which is also for 2028 in case of no luck for 2024 - a watershed for German sport.
"Sports Germany is set for an awakening. Speaking in a Hanseatic way, let's set off to new shores," he said.
Hoermann reiterated that the compact bid on the River Elbe, in a city with a population of 1.7 million, perfectly fitted the IOC reform package Agenda 2020 under which future Olympics are to be cheaper, less gigantic and more transparent.
"We want to become a role model for the Olympic and Paralympic future," he said.
