European Championships Munich 2022: The Sustainable Future of Sporting Event

The sports event scene has a particularly hard time in the corona pandemic. All the more reason for fans and athletes to look forward to the European Championships Munich 2022. For the first time in the history of the format, 4,700 athletes will then compete in just one city for European Championship gold in athletics as well as in beach volleyball, canoe racing, climbing, cycling (including road, track , mountain bike and BMX freestyle), rowing, table tennis, triathlon and gymnastics.

Sustainable, creative and cultural: The European Championships Munich 2022in Munich from 11 to 21 August 2022 aspire to become a benchmark for what a sports event of the future can look like. The organizers are focusing in particular on ecological, economic and social sustainability. A total of six core objectives have been defined for this.

One of them is the sustainability of the venues: Munich is using almost exclusively the existing infrastructure from the 1972 Summer Games. Where temporary facilities are necessary, they are to be reused or recycled afterwards.

The event centre will be the Olympic Park, where not only the track and field, mountain bike, triathlon and gymnastics competitions but also a large part of the supporting programme and the evening medal ceremony will take place. The rowing and canoeing competitions will take place on the regatta course in Oberschleißheim, just as they did five decades ago. The Rudi Sedlmayer Hall will host the table tennis tournament. The track cycling competitions are planned to take place on the grounds of Messe München, where ISPO Munich normally attracts tens of thousands of visitors.

And Munich's city center will also be involved: Königsplatz is where the spectacular climbing and beach volleyball competitions are planned, and Odeonsplatz is the destination for the marathons, the walking competitions and the road cycling races.

This already shows that Munich 2022 will be a sports event of short distances. Which contributes to the achievement of the second important sustainability goal: Transport at the major event is to be handled in a climate-neutral manner. The organizers also wants to set new standards when it comes to waste reduction, with the highest possible recycling rate. For example, the use of reusable tableware should reduce the overall amount of waste. 

Particularly important are the two core social issues in terms of sustainability: accessibility and a sustainable impact on popular and competitive sports. The concept becomes holistic by striving for positive local value creation and thus also taking economic sustainability into account.

"The Roofs" - the accompanying festival with a colorful mix of culture, art, music and food - is also intended to contribute to this. The name is a homage to the famous tent roofs in the Olympic Park. There, event islands will entertain visitors and encourage them to participate: Water Roof, Kids Roof, Creative Roof, Cultural Roof, Market Roof, Technology Roof and Activation Roof are planned among others. They are intended to help inspire not only die-hard sports fans but also new target groups for the topics of sport and health.