Bidding process
Main article: Bids for the 2012 Summer Olympics
The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said his primary motivation for initiating and lobbying for the city's bid was to develop the east end of London, neglected for over thirty years.[12] On 18 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.[13]
All five cities submitted their candidate files 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 inspection visit: a number of strikes and demonstrations coinciding with the visits, and a report that one of the key members of the Paris bid team would face charges over alleged corrupt party political finances.[14]
On 6 June 2005, the IOC released its evaluation reports for the five candidate cities. Although these reports did not contain any scores or rankings, the evaluation report for Paris was considered the most positive, now followed closely by London, which had narrowed most of the gap observed by the initial evaluation in 2004 regarding Paris. New York and Madrid also obtained very positive evaluation reports.[15]
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 seen lagging Paris by a considerable margin; however, this started to improve with the appointment of Sebastian Coe as new head of London 2012 on 19 May 2004.[16] In late August 2004, reports predicted a London and Paris tie in the 2012 bid.[17] 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, Jacques Rogge, 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".[18]
On 6 July 2005, the final selection was announced at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore. 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 votes, defeating Paris's 50.[19] The celebrations in London were short-lived, being overshadowed by terrorist attacks on London's transport system less than 24 hours after the announcement.[20]
| 2012 Summer Olympics bidding results | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City | NOC | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | |
| London |  United Kingdom |
22 | 27 | 39 | 54 | |
| Paris |  France |
21 | 25 | 33 | 50 | |
| Madrid |  Spain |
20 | 32 | 31 | — | |
| New York City |  United States |
19 | 16 | — | — | |
| Moscow |  Russia |
15 | — | — | — | |
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