London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone told the BBC he believes a single vote could ultimately decide whether London or Paris gets the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.
He said, “I don’t think it will be clear until they announce the results. I think it will be a handful of votes between us and Paris on the last ballot. It’s not impossible that this vote will be decided by 55 votes to 54. I suspect it could very well be decided on the last day, just by the quality of the presentations of the rival cities”.
Livingstone leaves on Friday to join bid leader Sebastian Coe and CEO Keith Mills, who are already fine-tuning their presentations.
The Telegraph reports that Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie have mounted a joint campaign to personally woo members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to secure the 2012 Games for London. They are writing letters to members and setting up one-to-one meetings in Singapore before the host city is announced next Wednesday.
The Telegraph revealed that Blair first wrote to IOC members two weeks ago, but it was a general letter about the bid.
But in the last couple of days the letter is more personal, asking for a meeting with the IOC member in Singapore next week. Cherie Blair has also written similar letters requesting a meeting.
The Blairs leave for Singapore Sunday and are planning two “hectic” days of campaigning Monday and Tuesday before they fly back to Britain in time for the G8 summit in Gleneagles, which the Prime Minister is hosting.
Meanwhile, Britain’s sports minister Richard Caborn has devised a plan which could be worth up to 12 million pounds a year in extra funding for the World Anti-Doping Agency which could also boost London’s 2012 bid. He has written to the chairman of Wada Dick Pound, detailing his idea.
Caborn is spearheading an international drive to recruit pharmaceutical companies to fund research and education into anti-doping, which would help free some of Wada’s stretched budget to carry out more drug testing, reports the Guardian.
