Nick Golüke

Germany. Summer. Soccer World Cup 2006: A nation experiences a summer fairytale. Germany, 18 years later. The UEFA Euro 2024. A changed country. And yet another happy and peaceful summer fairytale? Esther Sedlaczek takes the audience on a journey through Germany 2024 and paints a sporting, entertaining and thought-provoking picture of the state of the "soccer nation".

In the run-up, everything actually spoke against the Chinese capital as the host of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games: Beijing is neither a winter sports region nor are human rights respected in China. The IOC obviously didn't care. Topics such as sustainability, freedom of expression and climate protection were also pushed aside. It's about power and profit instead of the Olympic idea and its values. But more and more athletes are speaking up and calling for a reform of the Olympic Games. A pioneer in this matter is ARD Olympic expert Felix Neureuther, a former alpine skier, who sucked up the Olympic spirit with his mother's milk, because his parents are alpine ski legend Rosi Mittermaier, double gold medalist at the 1976 Winter Games in Innsbruck, and father Christian, a ski racer, who took part three times at the Olympics. Based on interviews with athletes, experts, IOC officials and persecuted Uyghurs, Felix gets a glimpse behind the scenes of the Olympic system.