2012 Olympics Update

[Scott Go Pre]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... Vkm.rHiUwc

Olympic Voters May Pick Underdog Over Paris for 2012 (Update1)

July 4 (Bloomberg) -- The vote for the 2012 Olympic host city is in the hands of sports administrators, former athletes and royalty, who have a record of selecting underdogs.

London, Madrid, Moscow and New York will take on the frontrunner Paris when 100 International Olympic Committee members including Sepp Blatter, president of soccer ruling body FIFA, and Prince Albert of Monaco start voting July 6 in Singapore. Bookmaker William Hill rates Paris a 1-4 favorite, London at 11-4, Madrid 20-1, New York 25-1 and Moscow 50-1.

``History has not been that kind to the frontrunner,'' Michael Payne, the IOC's former marketing director, said yesterday in an interview in Singapore. The process ``has provided a few major surprises along the way.''

At stake are rights that would trigger construction investment from $15.8 billion in London to $6.2 billion in Paris and lift the winning nation's economy with jobs and tourism. Four of the past six votes for the summer games were upsets, including Atlanta beating Athens to the 1996 Olympics, Payne said.

A climate of secrecy resulting from bidding guidelines introduced in 1999 after the Salt Lake City bribery scandal has made gauging voting intentions more difficult, said Alex Gilady, an IOC member from Israel. Then, 10 members quit or were expelled for receiving money and perks from 2002 Winter Games organizers.

``I've no idea how anyone is voting since we don't talk to each other about it,'' said Gilady, an NBC Sports Vice President, last month in Beijing.

`Wildcard'

All committee members, from Russian pole-vault champion Sergey Bubka to Senegal's Lamine Diack, track and field's highest official, are now barred from visiting bid cities. Instead, they receive reports on the candidates prepared by an IOC commission and see presentations on the day of the ballot.

``We spent the first few days working on our presentation,'' Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London bid, said in an interview in Singapore yesterday. ``Now we are concentrating on the relationship end of the deal.''

Other upsets in bid voting include Seoul beating Nagoya for the 1988 Olympics and Sydney edging Beijing for the 2000 games, Payne said. Including Winter Olympics, four of the 13 most recent votes have gone against the favorite, he added.

Cutting out the visits to bid cities may have reduced the chance of a surprise, according to Ed Hula, founder and editor of aroundtherings.com, an Olympic news service.

``You see much more of technical aspects of bids rather than the intangible effect of that one-on-one lobbying,'' Hula said in a June 14 interview from Atlanta. ``Those visits became a wildcard.''

Returning the Call

An invitation-only club, IOC membership used to be life-long but since 1999 has been on eight-year terms. Also in the past six years, the IOC has invited athletes to join, with Namibian sprinter Frankie Fredericks among 19 now involved.

The rest of the list includes the Prince of Orange, a Liechtenstein princess, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and Princess Anne of the U.K. Dick Pound, a Canadian IOC member, said a crude way to determine someone's suitability is ``whether, if they were to call the president or prime minister of their country, the call would be returned.''

Some IOC members are swayed by geo-politics and others only consider the technical nature of bids, such as stadiums and transport links, Pound wrote in his book ``Inside the Olympics.'' Most fall somewhere in the middle, he said.

Greek Victory

Vancouver only narrowly defeated what Pound said was a ``considerably inferior'' South Korean bid for the 2010 Olympics even though Beijing is holding the 2008 Olympics and the IOC tends to shun giving consecutive games to the same continent.

``The results are often astonishing and have been known to defy subsequent analysis,'' Pound wrote.

Of the 100 members eligible for tomorrow's first vote, 40 are from Europe, 26 are from Asia-Pacific, 12 from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 19 from Africa. Pound and two Mexicans are the only North Americans in the first ballot.

``The Commonwealth nations presumably would tend to favor London, which could be a bloc of 15-20 members,'' Hula said. ``France may suffer because there aren't many French-speaking countries.''

Voting is now televised, held by secret ballot and continues until one candidate has a majority, with the least popular city dropped after each round. It took two rounds for Beijing to win the 2008 vote, while Athens secured last year's games in the fourth ballot in another surprise win over Rome.

``Bookmakers usually get it wrong,'' said Seamus O'Brien, president of sports marketing company World Sport Group and an Olympic analyst for Channel News Asia, in an interview in Singapore on June 28. ``It's never been about who's got the best bid but about horseplay and sentiment.''



To contact the reporter on this story:
Grant Clark in Singapore at gclark@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 4, 2005 05:43 EDT

[jp1667]

"London beats Paris to 2012 Games" Wednesday, 6 July, 2005, 11:49 GMT 12:49 UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/front_page/4655555.stm

The 2012 Olympic Games will be held in London, the International
Olympic Committee has announced.

London won a two-way fight with Paris by 54 votes to 50 at the IOC meeting in Singapore, after bids from Moscow, New York and Madrid were eliminated.

Prime Minister Tony Blair called the win "a momentous day" for Britain.

Paris had been favourites throughout the campaign but London's hopes were raised after an impressive presentation by Lord Coe, the bid chairman.

IOC president Jacques Rogge made the dramatic announcement at 1249 BST.

It will be the first time the Olympics has been held in Britain since 1948.

Coe said: "This is just the most fantastic opportunity to do everything we ever dreamed of in British sport."

The Queen, in a message to Coe, said: "I send my warmest congratulations to you and every member of the London 2012 team for winning the bid for the UK.

"It's a really outstanding achievement to beat such a highly competitive field."

HOW VOTE UNFOLDED

Round 1: Moscow out
Round 2: New York out; Madrid lead in tight poll
Round 3: Madrid out
Round 4: London 54-50 Paris
Full details: Round by round
After the announcement, it emerged London was ahead in every round of voting except the second round when Madrid polled the most votes.

News of London's victory delighted flag-waving supporters who had gathered in Trafalgar Square and Stratford in the East End of London, where the new Olympic park will be built.

Shares of British construction companies soared, while mortgage lenders predicted house prices in the capital would rocket.

But raindrops began falling on disappointed Parisians outside the Hotel de Ville in the French capital shortly after the result.

Mr Blair had helped London's late momentum with a whistlestop 48-hour visit to Singapore, before flying back for the G8 summit in Scotland.

The best city in the world meets the best sporting event in the world!

From JS
Have your say on Five Live

Breaking off from the meeting of world leaders, he said of London: "Many reckon it is the greatest capital city in the world and the Olympics will help keep it that way."

Rogge had correctly forecast a cliffhanger vote, and offered his congratulations to the winners.

"We knew the two bids were very, very close. Well done, London. It will be a superb Games and will strengthen the Olympics," he said.

An hour after the decision, London's bid leaders were greeted by warm applause as they signed the official contract to stage the Games.

This is how the decision was made by the IOC in Singapore on Wednesday:



All five bidding cities gave final 45-minute presentations to the IOC members before the vote began.

The electronic ballot started at 1126 BST. Moscow, New York and Madrid were eliminated from the race in the first, second and third rounds of voting.

The final round of voting finished at about 1145 BST, with the committee reconvening at 1230 BST for the official announcement.

Rogge revealed the winner, after a nerve-wracking wait, at 1249 BST.

Wednesday's decision brings to an end the 18-month race to win the host contract for the 2012 Games.

And it was the most keenly-fought bidding contest in recent years.

Paris was considered the front-runner for much of the campaign, and was highly rated in the initial evaluation and also by the inspectors after their visits earlier in the year.

But it was widely recognised that bid leader Lord Coe, a high-profile personality within the IOC and other governing bodies, hauled London closer to the French capital as the vote approached.


Everyone was all together and we never lost our confidence

Bid leader Lord Coe on London's Olympic victory
Games triumph hailed

Madrid was seen as a consistent but not outstanding candidate, while New York's bid was dogged by problems over their proposed stadium, and Moscow was always seen as the rank outsider.

Once attention moved to Singapore, the bidding cities called on political and sporting heavyweights to champion their causes.

And the spotlight inevitably focused on Paris and London in the days leading up to the vote.

The two cities had President Chirac and Prime Minister Blair respectively in their corners.

Mr Chirac actually took part in the French capital's final presentation on Wednesday, while Mr Blair opted to lobby alongside the London bid team in Singapore before flying back to Britain to host the G8 summit.

London also called on England captain David Beckham and a galaxy of Olympic and Paralympic medallists as ambassadors, while footballers Laurent Blanc and Zinedine Zidane were among those backing the Paris bid.

[vaultmd]

It was amazing that even here in Tibet they carried the vote live on tv.

[Stensol]

According to news sources where I live, here were the voting results:

First round: London 22 votes, Paris 21, Madrid 20, New York 19, Moscow 15 (eliminated).

Second round: Madrid 32, London 27, Paris 25, New York 16 (eliminated).

Third round: London 39, Paris 33, Madrid 31 (eliminated).

Fourth round: London 54, Paris 50 (eliminated).

I'm not sure if the numbers add up, but keep in mind that IOC-members from countries whose candidature was still alive at the time didn't get to vote.

[roger/over]

And then, today, disaster.

Carles Baronet sends me Spanish and French results.

I was very impressed with the sensitivity of his observation that preceeded today's lists:

"Today, all of us are london citizens."

[LHSpolevault]

Looks like in 2008 I'll be travelin all the way to Beijing then goin to London in 2012... I was really hopin to vault in New York.