London awarded 2012 Games

SingaporeLondon was awarded the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games at the 117th International Olympic Committee meeting, defeating Paris, the other final contender and the city many considered the favourite prior to the balloting.

This success was built on the strategy of the British Olympic Committee led by the President and Chairman of London 2012, Sebastian Coe, who is an IAAF Council Member.

Coe is one of the greatest middle distance runners in history, the Olympic 1500m champion in 1980 and 1984, and the silver medallist in the 800m in both those years. But the race he helped win in Singapore on Wednesday night was as brilliant as anything he accomplished on the track.

“The feeling is entirely different,” Coe said when asked to compare this victory with his athletic achievements. “I said before coming to the IOC session that bringing the Games to London in 2012 would be the greatest thing I’ve been involved in.”

“It would mean much more than my two gold medals. If I had 20 medals, I would sacrifice them to bring home the Games.”

“I always felt London had an outstanding chance to take the prize,” he added. “My natural instinct was the right strategy would be based around getting more youth into sport, not only domestically, but internationally.”

As a 12-year-old schoolboy he was excused from classes to watch a grainy black-and-white television showing British athletes at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. From that moment he knew what he wanted to be: an Olympic athlete. “Thirty-seven years later I still recall being inspired by that great moment. My heroes were Olympians.”

Fellow British Olympic champion, Denise Lewis, echoed these sentiments. “I was only eight years old at the time of the Moscow Olympics, but I dreamt of emulating Olympians, which I first did in 1996 and then 2000 when I won the gold medal in the heptathlon.”

Amber Charles, a 15-year old teenager from the East London district which will benefit most from Olympic development, delivered the official London Bid to IOC headquarters in Lausanne and was a member of the London 2012 delegation. She was one of 38 teenagers on the London bid team. Her sport is basketball and reacting to the night’s events said, “I will train ever harder. I want to play for England.”

The legacy factor also played to one of the London bid’s strengths. It has a proposed 82,000 seat Olympic Stadium to be reduced to a 24,000 seat athletics facility for permanent use after 2012.

History

London will become the first city to host three Olympic Games. The first was in 1908, the initial Games with facilities built for Olympic competition and where the Marathon distance first became today’s now standard distance of 26 miles, 385 yards (42.195-km). London then got the modern Olympics back on course in 1948 after a 12-year gap due to the strife of World War II.

The vote

Voting for the 2012 host site began at 6:30 pm local time and if the actual vote counts had been released after each round, then London’s eventual win would not have been a surprise at all. Only the eliminated cities were announced after each ballot with the specific counts not published until after the naming of London’s election at approximately 7:45 pm.

It turned out that London led Paris throughout each round, 22-21 in the first as Moscow dropped out, 27-25 in the second - although Madrid had the most votes with 32 - with New York eliminated, 39-33 in the third round when Madrid was removed from the candidates list, and finally 54-50 in the decisive fourth ballot.

This was the second closest decision since the IOC adopted this voting procedure for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Sydney prevailed over Beijing 45-43 in the 1993 vote to determine the 2000 host city.

There are 116 IOC members although not all took part in the proceedings. IOC president Jacques Rogge did not vote and a few were absent due to illness or other circumstances. Members could also not vote in any round if they were from a country with a host city candidate still in the running.

Among the members are some of track and field’s greatest Olympians: Valeriy Borzov, Guy Drut, Irena Szewinska, Nawal El Moutawakel, Sergey Bubka, Kip Keino, Jan Zelezny, Hicham el Guerrouj and Frank Fredericks. In addition IAAF President Lamine Diack is an IOC member.

Singapore is a winner too

The city state of Singapore was also a big winner. It secured the right to host this IOC session in November 2002 over Guatemala City, becoming the site of the year’s biggest sports media event and boosting Singapore’s tourism sector by $40 million. Wednesday night’s proceedings were broadcast live from the Raffles City Convention Centre to more than 1 billion people worldwide.

Marty Post for the IAAF