Düsseldorf officially made their intentions known yesterday, after the city’s council voted 40 to 39 in flavor of submitting a bid to host the 2017 Tour de France Grand Depart.
The vote puts the posh city on the Rhine River in top position for the 2017, after London decided to pull its bid in September.
Mayor Thomas Geisel campaigned hard for the event, after expressing his interest in a meeting with race director Christian Prudhomme during this years Tour de France.
“Germany is a very important country in Europe,” Prudhomme told the DPA news agency. “There is a lot of enthusiasm. We are working with several different cities on a return to Germany and I hope that it will become reality.”
“This is an event with worldwide appeal. We got great response to our application from the Tour organisers and all cycling associations, we are probably in a nearly unrivalled situation,” said Burkhard Hintzsche, head of the city’s sports department,
Hosting the Grand Depart will require Düsseldorf to front approximately 11 million euros to the race’s organizer, Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), in the form of a fee, as well as costs related to infrastructure.
However, Düsseldorf hopes to offset the cost, with revenue brought in by tourism, which could reach as mush as 57 million euros or more.
If successful, Düsseldorf would be the first time Germany has hosted the Tour de France since the race last visited West Berlin in 1987.
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