Applications for the 2012 Summer Olympics

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Candidate logo of the victorious candidate city of London

Nine cities submitted applications to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to host the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Paralympics . After a technical evaluation, the IOC put five cities - London , Madrid , Moscow , New York and Paris  - on a shortlist , while four other cities - Havana , Istanbul , Leipzig and Rio de Janeiro - dropped out prematurely. The contract was ultimately awarded to London, which became the first city to host the Olympic Games for the third time.

The application process for the 2012 Summer Games was considered to be one of the most competitive in the history of the IOC. Paris has long been the most cited favorite, and Madrid have also been given certain opportunities. But clever lobbying and a convincing final presentation by Sebastian Coe during the 117th IOC session in Singapore on July 6, 2005 led to London's rather surprising success. The application phase was marked by several controversies, including a corruption scandal involving Ivan Slavkov . The Bulgarian IOC member had agreed to influence the selection process in exchange for financial compensation, whereupon he was expelled.

Application process

The Olympic application process begins with the submission of a city's application to the IOC by the responsible National Olympic Committee (NOK) and ends with the selection of the venue by the IOC members in an ordinary session. The rules for this are set out in Chapter 5, Paragraph 33 of the Olympic Charter. For more information, see Olympic Games # Venues .

National selection process in Germany

Aerial view of the planned Olympic village on both sides of the Rhine in Düsseldorf (architectural graphic)

Five cities and regions submitted applications for hosting the Olympic Games to the National Olympic Committee for Germany : Hamburg , Düsseldorf , the Rhine-Main area , Stuttgart and Leipzig . In the national selection process, Leipzig was able to prevail against Hamburg in the final with an emotional application. The Olympic sailing tournament should be held in Rostock , the equestrian events in Dresden and Moritzburg .

Evaluation of the applicant cities

The deadline for submitting applications for the 2012 Olympic Games was July 15, 2003. Until that date, potential applicants had time to submit a questionnaire that the IOC could use to analyze the hosting skills, strengths and weaknesses of a candidate. Nine cities made use of this option. The IOC Executive Board then invited all candidate cities to the second phase, which lasted until January 15, 2004. Now a second questionnaire had to be submitted in the form of an extensive and detailed project presentation. After a thorough analysis of the presentations, the IOC assessed them with a weighted average grade based on grades in eleven subject areas: political and social support, general infrastructure, sports facilities, Olympic village, environment, accommodation, transport, safety, experience in conducting sports events , Finances and re-use. If the grade of an application was higher than 6 (previously determined guideline value of the IOC), the city was considered to be highly competent for the implementation of the Olympic Games; otherwise the chances were slim. On May 18, the IOC announced the results of the evaluation:

Overview of the applicant cities

The top five cities advanced to the next phase and were now considered official candidate cities. They were also granted the right to use the Olympic rings in their candidate logo.

Evaluation of the candidate cities

By November 15, 2004, all candidate cities submitted extended and more detailed documents. After a period of thorough analysis, the cities were visited by the IOC's Evaluation Committee (chaired by Nawal El Moutawakel ). The four-day visits took place between February 3 and March 17, 2005. During this phase, the Paris candidacy suffered two setbacks. Several strikes and demonstrations took place during the visit; in addition, the Evening Standard published a report that IOC member Guy Drut , a key figure in the candidacy, was being charged with a party donation scandal.

On June 6, 2005, the IOC published the reports of the evaluation commission on the five candidate cities. Despite not including grades or rankings, Paris made the strongest impression, closely followed by London, which had made numerous improvements since the initial assessment in 2004. New York and Madrid also received positive ratings, while Moscow was considered the weakest candidate.

During the entire application process and in the run-up to the decisive vote, Paris was the favorite, especially since this application was already the third in the recent past (for the 1992 and 2008 Summer Games). London followed at a considerable distance, but this began to change after Sebastian Coe was chosen as the leading figure of the candidacy on May 19, 2004. In August 2004, various media began predicting a head-to-head race between London and Paris. A few days before the decisive vote, IOC President Jacques Rogge said in front of the assembled press: “I cannot predict it because I do not know how the IOC members will vote. But my gut feeling tells me that it will be very tight. Maybe the difference will be ten votes or even less. "

Choice of venue

The decision on the venue was made on July 6, 2005 during the 117th IOC session in Singapore, which took place in the Raffles City Convention Center . It began at 9:00 a.m. local time ( UTC +8) with the hour-long presentations of the candidate cities, followed by a half-hour press briefing, in this order: Paris, New York, Moscow, London, Madrid. The presentations ended at 6:00 p.m. local time and the evaluation committee presented its final report before the votes. Of the 116 active IOC members, 17 could not cast their vote in the first round, which would mean 99 votes.

Electronic voting began at 6:28 p.m. local time. In the first three rounds Moscow, New York and Madrid were eliminated one after the other. After the departure of a city, the members of the respective federal states were entitled to vote, as a result of which the number of votes cast increased from ballot to ballot. London and Paris made it to the fourth ballot, which closed at 6:45 p.m. local time. An hour later, Jacques Rogge formally announced the winner. London prevailed against Paris with just 54 to 50 votes. The exact results were published immediately afterwards:

place country Round 1 round 2 Round 3 Round 4
London United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 22nd 27 39 54
Paris FranceFrance France 21st 25th 33 50
Madrid SpainSpain Spain 20th 32 31 -
new York United StatesUnited States United States 19th 16 - -
Moscow RussiaRussia Russia 15th - - -

Overview of the candidacies

London

A London Underground train with advertising livery for the Olympic candidacy

After Birmingham and Manchester failed with their candidacies for the Summer Games in 1992 and 1996 and 2000 respectively, the British Olympic Association (BOA) came to the conclusion that London had the best chance of bringing the Olympic Games to Great Britain. The heart of the London candidacy is the district of Stratford in the lower Lea Valley, where the Olympic Park and the Olympic Village are being built. The site is accessed by several rail connections that can transport 240,000 people an hour. After the games, the area will be transformed into the largest city park in Europe for the last 150 years, with an area of ​​2 km². Wherever possible, existing systems should be used or temporary systems built in order to keep future maintenance costs as low as possible. The victory celebrations for the successful candidacy had to be canceled the day after the IOC vote due to the terrorist attacks of July 7, 2005 .

Paris

Logo of the Paris candidacy

Paris had been seen by many as a favorite to host the Olympic Games. The capital of France had already failed twice in the recent past: Barcelona was given preference for 1992, Beijing for 2008 . The plan was very compact and provided for two Olympic centers, a northern center around the Stade de France and a southern center around the Parc des Princes . The Olympic Village would have been built halfway between the two centers, less than ten minutes from each. The candidacy was considered to be of high technical quality and received high technical grades from the IOC's evaluation committee. This happened because of the well-developed transport infrastructure and the numerous available accommodation options, which would have allowed a large number of tourists to be cope with. Most of the sports facilities already existed, but the construction of temporary facilities was also planned, which could be dismantled after the games and used in other locations. Paris' rich cultural and Olympic heritage was highlighted, as was the city's experience of successfully hosting major international sporting events , such as the 1998 World Cup and the 2003 World Athletics Championships .

Madrid

Logo of the Madrid candidacy

In January 2003 Madrid had prevailed in an internal elimination against Sevilla . Madrid wanted to hold “games of short distances” with three centers close together. Since most of the facilities already exist, hosting the Games in Madrid would have been the cheapest option. For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, the hundreds of thousands of visitors would have been transported exclusively by local public transport between the individual sports facilities, the energy supply of the facilities would have come exclusively from renewable energies. The biggest obstacle to a successful application from Madrid was that the 1992 Summer Games had already been played in the Spanish city of Barcelona . IOC member Prince Albert of Monaco questioned the security situation in Madrid, referring to the train attacks in Madrid on March 11, 2004, in which 191 people were killed. The Spanish delegation found Albert's statement particularly insulting and made them jointly responsible for the failure of the Madrid candidacy.

new York

New York candidacy logo

In an internal elimination in 2002 , New York prevailed against San Francisco . The "Olympic X" plan provided for two main traffic axes , which should connect the various Olympic centers in the districts of Manhattan , Queens and Brooklyn as well as in East Rutherford ( New Jersey ) with the Olympic village at the intersection of these axes. Within these centers, well-known facilities such as Madison Square Garden , Yankee Stadium , Central Park , Billie Jean King Center , Giants Stadium and the Izod Center should be used; but the construction of new facilities was also planned. The candidacy suffered a severe setback in June 2005 when New York State refused to finance the planned Olympic Stadium on Manhattan's West Side . The New York Committee came up with an alternative plan for the Citi Field under construction within a week , but that change just a month before the vote cut the odds significantly. To make matters worse, Vancouver, a North American city, was awarded the contract for the 2010 Winter Olympics .

Moscow

Logo of the Moscow candidacy

Moscow's candidacy for the 2012 Summer Games envisaged the re-use of most of the competition facilities that had been built for the 1980 Summer Games . All competition venues should be located within the city limits and in clusters along the Moscow River . According to the candidate committee, this would have meant “one of the most compact games ever”. The candidacy, however, was not worked out in detail. Other weak points were the lack of accommodation and acute traffic problems. There were also doubts that the partly outdated sports facilities could be renovated in time.

Controversy

Allegation of surreptitious advertising

In December 2003, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke about London’s candidacy at a “sports breakfast” held during a summit in Nigeria . Blair mentioned them in connection with the positive legacy of the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester : "It was in part the success of the Commonwealth Games that inspired our candidacy for the Olympics." bans, it requested a written statement from UK officials about the alleged violation. The Chairs of the Commonwealth Games Association and the British Olympic Association, as well as spokesmen for the government and the Candidate Committee, denied any violation of the IOC Code of Ethics and insisted that Blair's comment had been taken out of context; the intention was never to advertise the candidacy. However, in order to avoid any ethical disputes in the future, the barrister Michael Beloff was appointed ethics officer for the London candidacy two months later .

Ivan Slavkov's corruption scandal

On August 4, 2004, the BBC news program Panorama released the results of a year-long investigation. Reporters had posed as representatives of the fictional consulting firm "New London Ventures", which allegedly represented the interests of various companies that were interested in bringing the 2012 Summer Games to London. The report revealed that some middlemen could secure the votes of certain IOC members for the London candidacy in exchange for favors or cash payments. The reporters had secretly filmed a meeting with Goran Takac, one of the middlemen. He promised to establish contact with IOC member Ivan Slawkow , the President of the Bulgarian Olympic Committee . Slavkov declared that he was ready to negotiate as he had not yet decided which candidacy to vote for. Takac mentioned that Slavkov's position in the IOC was an advantage in circumventing the strict rules on meeting other members; in addition, Slavkov's "service fee" was included in the amount that the reporters had already been told.

In the days leading up to the broadcast, the IOC's Ethics Committee launched an investigation to investigate allegations related to the report. Although the Panorama reporters expressly stated that there was no connection whatsoever with the London candidacy, representatives of the bid committee made additional statements that they had no knowledge of the report and were not involved in it. Alan Pascoe , one of the vice chairpersons of the bid committees, said: “I have to make it very clear that London 2012 did not know anything about it. We have nothing to hide and will cooperate fully with the IOC investigators. ” Sebastian Coe confirmed Pascoe's words and assured that London 2012 behaved correctly and ethically during the entire application process. After IOC members and officials had watched the report, they acquitted London of any wrongdoing in 2012.

After the broadcast, the IOC temporarily suspended Ivan Slavkov and banned him from attending the 2004 Olympic Games . Jacques Rogge said he was very upset that some people did not obey the rules and said that under his leadership there was no tolerance for unethical behavior. A report published by the IOC Ethics Committee on October 25, 2004 condemned Slavkov's behavior and confirmed the veracity of the BBC's research: “The full recording of the meeting between Mr Slawkow and the two journalists revealed that:… Mr Slawkow on none Time and in no way refused to discuss the terms of a contract to guarantee a candidate city votes from IOC members who would have been influenced by him or Mr. Takac. ”Slawkow alleged that he went to the meeting on purpose, to the alleged expose corrupt persons. The ethics committee's report, however, stated that there was no evidence during the meeting that Slavkov's sole intention was to catch the offenders red-handed. He had not been commissioned to “find the real roots of corruption”; he would also have benefited financially from Takac's services. With his behavior Slawkow had stained the honor and reputation of the Olympic movement and the IOC. On July 7, 2005, during the 117th IOC session, Slavkov was expelled from the IOC with 84 to 12 votes.

Blame after the election

The Paris delegation led by Bertrand Delanoë claimed on July 11, 2005 after a lost vote that Tony Blair and the London delegation had deliberately broken the rules set by the IOC. One controversial move by the London candidacy team was its initiative to offer participating athletes various perks, including free flights, meals, long distance vouchers and other financial favors. Immediately after the initiative was announced, London withdrew it, most likely in response to Jacques Rogge's concerns that such incentives had the potential to spark a “bidding war”. Paris also claimed that Tony Blair's lobbying was illegal - an accusation that the UK government firmly denied. It was only on August 4, 2005 that Jacques Rogge put an end to any further controversy by stating in a statement: “I made it very clear that, from my point of view, the competition was fair. It was conducted according to the rules that we established. ”Delanoë's remarks also met with criticism in France. Claude Goasguen, president of the Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP), said you couldn't make these types of allegations without having some evidence.

Even before the vote, there were tensions between the French and British delegations in Singapore. The Paris application team had considered filing a complaint against consultants Jim Sloman and Rod Sheard. They had claimed that the Stade de France was unsuitable for athletics competitions. Negative statements by an application team about a competitor's candidacy are prohibited under IOC rules. The London team immediately assured them that the two Australian advisors were no longer employed at this point and stressed that these comments were purely private and did not reflect the opinion of the London candidacy.

Chirac's culinary commentary

A controversy over French President Jacques Chirac is said to have contributed to the defeat in the Paris vote . At a meeting with Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schröder in Moscow, Chirac said that only Finnish cuisine was worse than English and that mad cow disease was the only British contribution to European agriculture. These statements, circulated by the French newspaper Liberation, made headlines around the world the day before the vote. Of the two attacked nations, only two Finnish IOC members were involved in the final vote, which was 54:50 in favor of London. The IOC president, who is decisive in the event of a tie, was assumed to have sympathy for Paris. As a result, several press reports assumed that Chirac's comments had won the vote in London.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Olympic Charter. (PDF, 767 KB) International Olympic Committee, July 8, 2011, accessed on May 1, 2012 .
  2. ^ Report by the IOC candidature acceptance working group to the IOC Executive Board. (PDF, 1.52 MB) International Olympic Committee, March 14, 2004, accessed on May 1, 2012 (English).
  3. ↑ a b c 2012 candidature procedure and questionnaire. (PDF, 1.81 MB) International Olympic Committee, May 2004, accessed on May 1, 2012 (English).
  4. ↑ Day One Of Paris 2012 Inspection By IOC. gamesbids.com, March 9, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  5. ^ Paris, London and New York Get Glowing IOC Reports. gamesbids.com, June 6, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  6. ↑ Race For 2012 Summer Olympics Could be Photo Finish. gamesbids.com, June 5, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  7. ^ London And Paris Tie In 2012 Bid. gamesbids.com, August 31, 2004, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  8. ↑ Rogge arrives in Singapore. International Sailing Federation, July 1, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Election of the host city for the Games of the XXX Olympiad - Who votes? International Olympic Committee, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  10. ↑ a b London beats Paris to 2012 Games. British Broadcasting Corporation, July 6, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  11. ^ Rivals for 2012: London. British Broadcasting Corporation, June 8, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  12. ^ Stratford Olympic Park. (No longer available online.) Alwaystouchout.com, January 25, 2006, archived from the original on March 20, 2007 ; accessed on May 1, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alwaystouchout.com
  13. ↑ Olympic Park. londontown.com, 2012, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  14. ↑ London Terrorist Attack Won't Affect Host City Status Says IOC - Celebration Canceled. gamesbids.com, July 7, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  15. ^ Rivals for 2012: Paris. gamesbids.com, June 8, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  16. ↑ a b c Report of the IOC Evaluation Commission for the Games of the XXX Olympiad in 2012. (PDF; 2.8 MB) International Olympic Committee, June 6, 2005, accessed on May 1, 2012 (English).
  17. ↑ Madrid Chosen Spain's Candidate For 2012 Bid. gamesbids.com, January 21, 2003, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  18. ^ Rivals for 2012: Madrid. British Broadcasting Corporation, June 8, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  19. ↑ Alberto de Mónaco Niega haber sido "teledirigido". El Mundo, July 13, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 (Spanish).
  20. ↑ Home improvements. USA Today, May 18, 2004, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  21. ^ Funding For New York 2012 Olympic Stadium Rejected. gamesbids.com, June 6, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  22. ^ Rivals for 2012: New York. British Broadcasting Corporation, June 8, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  23. ^ Rivals for 2012: Moscow. British Broadcasting Corporation, June 8, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  24. ↑ Blair denies 'Olympic pitch'. British Broadcasting Corporation, December 22, 2003, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  25. ↑ London appoints ethics tsar. British Broadcasting Corporation, February 3, 2004, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  26. ↑ a b c d Buying the Games. British Broadcasting Corporation, July 6, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  27. ^ A b c The case against Slavkov. British Broadcasting Corporation, July 6, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  28. ↑ Olympic votes 'up for sale'. British Broadcasting Corporation, July 30, 2004, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  29. ^ IOC clears London group of bid corruption. China Daily, August 13, 2004, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  30. ^ IOC Ethics Commission: Decision with recommendations. (PDF; 23 kB) International Olympic Committee, October 25, 2004, accessed on May 1, 2012 (English).
  31. ↑ a b JO 2012: Delanoë relance la polémique. L'Express, July 11, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  32. ↑ a b London’s Bid Breached Rules Said Paris Mayor - Blair Spokesman Calls It “Fair”. gamesbids.com, July 11, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  33. ↑ London withdraws 2012 incentives. British Broadcasting Corporation, April 23, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  34. ^ Rogge Calls 2012 Host City Competition “Fair”. gamesbids.com, August 4, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  35. ^ IOC President Steps In To Diffuse Potential Dispute. gamesbids.com, July 4, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  36. ↑ Chirac's reheated food jokes bring Blair to the boil. The Guardian, July 5, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .
  37. ↑ Oly rivals revive old feud. Deseret News, July 6, 2005, accessed May 1, 2012 .