The Hindu : Sport : Olympics returns to London after 64 years

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Thursday, Jul 07, 2005

Sport

Sport

Olympics returns to London after 64 years

P. S. Suryanarayana

ECSTASY UNBRIDLED: British Olympian Kelly Holmes hugs athlete Steve Cram as they celebrate after London was chosen to host the 2012 Olympic Games on Wednesday. — Photo: AP

SINGAPORE: London earned the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games, emerging winner in a tight race among five candidate cities, as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) held the much-awaited election here on Wednesday.

With Moscow, New York and Madrid getting eliminated one after the other in the first three rounds, London edged out Paris in the decisive round by 54 votes to 50. The required majority was 53 and the number of IOC member-voters was 104.

While a member of the presentation team from Paris remarked that his city did not lose but London won, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said, "We will bid for the right to become the host city for the 2016 Olympic Games."

Asked what clinched the issue in London's favour in the fourth and final round, its visibly pleased Mayor Ken Livingstone said it was the theme of the final presentation. The ideals of the Olympic movement, along with the theme of "personal best" during competition, were well packaged by the London team.

Right approach

Mr. Livingstone said that, in the end, the race was not about the infrastructure a city could boast of while hosting the Olympics. Noting that the Moscow team had also projected the Olympic ideals, he said this approach might catch on among future competitors vying to host the Games.

The `London 2012' team, chaired by former Olympic gold medallist Sebastian Coe, made a powerful video-presentation on how people from all walks of life, athletes as well as others, could seek to excel in many different ways in the spirit of the Olympics.

The IOC President, Jacques Rogge, praised the London team for making "a high quality bid" in the face of stiff competition from the other cities. Emphasising that it was a "cruel" race for the host city status, in the sense that only a gold medal was awarded and there were no other prizes unlike in the actual Games, Mr. Rogge hoped that the other contenders would bid again. He said both Beijing, which will host the 2008 Olympiad, and Athens, which conducted the 2004 Games, won the right only during the second bid.

Full of drama

The drama of the contest among the five "world-class cities," as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg described them, was heightened by the passionate live campaign by political leaders. While British Prime Minister Tony Blair was the first to hit the home-stretch campaign trail, Paris' case was made out by President Jacques Chirac in Singapore on Wednesday.

While Russian President Vladimir Putin did a star-turn for Moscow by delivering a message in English, the President of the Spanish Government, Rodriguez Zapatero, campaigned for Madrid. The lobbying for New York was done by Senator Hillary Clinton among others, including Muhammad Ali.

Security concerns, like the vulnerability-quotient of the competing candidate cities, were among the several factors that came into focus during the contest, especially in view of the recent terrorist strikes in some of these places.

The Singapore authorities provided a tight security for the IOC meeting, while the enthusiasm among the local people for the contest was quite high.

Vaiju Naravane adds from Paris:

There was a moment's silence as news of London winning the Olympic bid was flashed on giant screens. This was followed by a collective roar of disappointment from a crowd of about 10,000 and there were genuine displays of sorrow and anger.

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, in an interview from Singapore with French television said: "This is an immense disappointment. I just can't explain how it happened, to tell you the truth."

Paris had been banking on the Olympics to create jobs and get the economy out of the doldrums. "We needed the Games. It would have created jobs, especially in hotels and restaurants. It would have put young people to work. It would have given us reason to hope. Coming as it does on top of the EU referendum, this is very bad news indeed," said Monique Perret, a sports inspector who had made the trip from her faraway suburb.

Hard to digest

The French are finding defeat even harder to bear since the winner is its traditional archrival, Britain. "We clearly had the better project. The British indulged in a lot of tough lobbying, quite a bit of it underhand. This was not gentlemanly behaviour and the Olympic spirit was nowhere in sight," said Monique, referring to a British official's denigrating remarks about stadium facilities in France.

Most Parisians questioned said they would not have minded if New York, Madrid or Moscow had won the bid. What hurt them most was London pipping them to the post. This is Paris' third failed attempt. It was a hot favourite till the very end and the French were convinced that they would emerge victorious.

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