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Associated Press 21y

Leipzig will be Germany's 2012 candidate

MUNICH, Germany -- Leipzig beat out four competitors
Saturday to become Germany's candidate to host the 2012 Olympic
Games.

The German National Olympic Committee, meeting in Munich, the
last German city to host the games in 1972, chose Leipzig over
favorite Hamburg, Stuttgart, Duesseldorf and Frankfurt. Rostock
will host the sailing competition.

Tens of thousands of people celebrated in Leipzig after seeing
their city's name flashed on a giant screen.

Leipzig will compete against New York and Madrid, and as many as
four other cities for the right to stage the Olympics. Bids from
Moscow, Paris, London and either Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo are
also possible before the July deadline.

"Entire Germany is behind you,'' Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
told Leipzig mayor Wolfgang Tiefensee, promising financial and
other backing for the bid. "The government will do all it can to
help you and to bring the games to Germany.''

The International Olympic Committee will select the host city in
July 2005.

Leipzig, a city of 490,000 people, was once regarded as an
outsider for the nomination.

A relatively prosperous city in the largely depressed former
East Germany, Leipzig has a rich sporting tradition, and its bid
enjoyed overwhelming support.

Leipzig received the most votes in all rounds and soundly
defeated Hamburg in the final ballot with 81 of the 132 votes cast.

The city made a convincing final 15-minute presentation just
before the vote with a film that recalled the fall of the Berlin
Wall, highlighting Leipzig as the cradle of the East German
revolution that brought down the communist government and
effectively ended the Cold War.

"We Leipzigers believe in another miracle,'' Tiefensee said in
a passionate plea to the selectors.

Former West German president Richard von Weizsaecker, Olympic
figure skating champion Katarina Witt, soccer star Michael Ballack
and famed conductor Kurt Masur were featured in the film.

In 1993, Berlin, capital of the newly reunited Germany, was
soundly defeated in the running for the 2000 Olympics in a
scandal-plagued bid that never gained much popular support among
Germans.

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