ABSTRACT
During the Beijing Olympiad, there was one successful application to host an Olympic Games. On 6 July 2005, it was announced in Singapore that the host city for the Games of the XXX Olympiad would be the city of London (IOC 6 July 2005). Initially, nine cities submitted applications to host the 2012 Olympic Games: Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig, London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, Paris, and Rio de Janeiro (IOC 27 October 2005). These applicant cities were ‘assessed by a group of experts who presented a report to the IOC Executive Board’, which then – on 18 May 2004 – selected the five candidate cities (Games Bids 29 July 2005), these being London, Madrid, Moscow, New York and Paris. The candidate cities were selected, as the IOC puts it, ‘after a study of their application was made by a working group comprising IOC administration members and external experts’ (IOC 27 October 2005). This working group assessed each applicant city’s ‘ability to stage high-level, international, multi-sport events and their ability to organise quality Olympic Games in 2012, against a set of 16 technical assessment criteria’, these being Olympic Games Concept and Legacy, Political and Economic Structure, Legal Aspects and Guarantees, Custom and Immigration Formalities, Environment and Meteorology, Finance, Marketing, Sports and Venues, Paralympic Games, Olympic Village, Medical Services, Security, Accommodation, Transport, Media Operations, and Olympism and Culture (ibid.). The five candidate cities for the 2012 Games submitted their candidature files to the IOC in January 2005 (ibid.). These files were scrutinized by the IOC Evaluation Commission, which went on to carry out on the spot
inspections of the candidate cities before issuing a report on 6 June 2005 (ibid.; see also IOC 6-9 July 2005), precisely one month before the final decision on the host city for the XXX Olympic Games was made by the full IOC membership during the 117th Session of the IOC in Singapore on 6 July 2005 (IOC 27 October 2005). Following four rounds of voting by the IOC members, London was eventually elected by receiving 54 votes out of a possible 104 (see Figure 4.1).
