The mayors of all five 2012 bid cities – Paris, London, New York, Madrid, Moscow – are in Berlin pitching their bids at the SportAccord conference.
London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone told Reuters, “the mere fact that all five mayors of these great cities are here shows that every vote now matters. We are all here lobbying”.
New York and London were the only cities to announce major new initiatives, reports the Associated Press, targeting their plans specifically to the federation officials who run Olympic sports and appealing to their budgets. Most of the federation heads are also International Olympic Committee (IOC) members, who are eligible to vote for the 2012 Summer Games host city in Singapore in July.
Livingstone said the vote would hinge on which of Paris or London is more successful in getting second and third choice votes. He said, “four years ago it was assumed London had no chance. With every month that has passed we have closed the gap on Paris. The (vote) will be determined on second and third choices. The focus for London and Paris is on the people whose first choice is Moscow, Madrid or New York and how they switch when the city they want is eliminated”.
Moscow’s mayor Yuri Luzhkov said he was paying no attention to reports of a leak which placed the Russians as rank outsiders. He told Reuters through an interpreter, “the reality is different. There was loud applause for our presentation. These (reports) are all just stories”.
The order of the 10-minute presentations by the five bid cities were Paris, New York, Moscow, London and Madrid.
Paris, Madrid and Moscow’s bid teams did not have new sales pitches, but all three received praise for giving their speeches in English. The French team had been criticized for not making its last presentation in English, even though French is one of the official Olympic languages.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Craig Reedie, chairman of the British Olympic Association, also praised Moscow, Madrid and Paris for their English presentations and said all the presentations had become more sophisticated. But he added that a nice presentation alone did not decide the race.
Reedie said the two cities who showed more understanding for their audience and came up with relevant plans were New York and London.
This is the fourth meeting in which the five candidate cities have explained their Olympic bids. The next and last gathering before July 6 will take place in Accra Ghana in the presence of the African National Olympic Committee representatives.
