London

2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad or "London 2012 Olympic Games", are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012.[1] London will become the first city to officially host the modern Olympic Games three times,[2][3] having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948.[4][5]
London wasselected as the host city on 6 July 2005 during the 117th IOC Session Session in Singapore, defeating Moscow, New York City, Madrid and Paris after four rounds of voting.[6] The successful bid was headed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe.
The Olympics prompted a redevelopment of many of the areas of London in which the games are to be held – particularly themed towards sustainability.[7] Whilethe budgetary considerations have generated some criticism,[8][9] the Games will make use of many venues which were already in place before the bid, including Wembley Stadium, Wembley Arena, Wimbledon All England Club, Lord's Cricket Ground, The O2 Arena, Earls Court Exhibition Centre, Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, and the Excel Centre.
Bidding process
Main article: Bids forthe 2012 Summer Olympics
A London 2012 Olympics banner at The Monument in London.
By the bid submission deadline of 15 July 2003, nine cities had submitted bids to host the 2012 Olympics. These cities were Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig, London, Madrid, Moscow, New York City, Paris and Rio de Janeiro.[10]
London's bid appears to have been the idea of the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.[11]
On18 May 2004, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as a result of a scored technical evaluation, reduced the number of cities to five: London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, and Paris.[12]
All five cities submitted their candidate file by 19 November 2004, and were visited by the IOC inspection team during February and March 2005. The Paris bid suffered two setbacks during the IOC inspectionvisit: a number of strikes and demonstrations coinciding with the visits and a report coming out that one of the key members of the Paris bid team would face charges over alleged corrupt party political finances.[13]
On 6 June 2005, the IOC its evaluation reports for the five candidate cities. Although these reports did not contain any scores or rankings, the evaluation report for Paris wasconsidered the most positive, now followed closely by London which had narrowed down most of the gap observed by the initial evaluation in 2004 regarding Paris. Also New York and Madrid obtained very positive evaluation reports.[14]
Throughout the process, Paris was widely seen as the favourite to win the nomination, particularly as this was its third bid in recent history. Originally London was seenlagging Paris by considerable margin; however, this started to improve with the appointment of Sebastian Coe as new head of London 2012 on 19 May 2004. In late August 2004, some reports started emerging predicting a London and Paris tie in the 2012 bid.[15] In the final run-up to the 117th IOC Session, London and Paris appeared to be increasingly in a neck-and-neck race. On 1 July 2005, JacquesRogge, when asked who the winner would be, told the assembled press: "I cannot predict it since I don't know how the IOC members will vote. But my gut feeling tells me that it will be very close. Perhaps it will come down to a difference of say ten votes, or maybe less".[16]
On 6 July 2005, the final selection was announced at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore. Here Prime Minister of the UnitedKingdom Tony Blair was the only leader of the five candidate cities' countries to make a personal lobby (he had also been the only one to attend the 2004 Olympics).[17] Moscow was the first city to be eliminated, followed by New York and Madrid. The final two cities left in contention were London and Paris. At the end of the fourth round of voting, London won the right to host the 2012 Games with 54...