London beat Paris to host 2012 Olympics

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – London beat favorites Paris for theright to stage the 2012 Olympic Games on Wednesday in a finalshowdown after Moscow, New York and Madrid were eliminated fromthe five-city contest.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Roggeannounced the British capital as the winner in a globallytelevised ceremony after a day of presentations at the IOCsession in Singapore’s Raffles City complex.

The news was greeted by screams of joy from the Londonteam, long seen as Paris’s strongest rival but always thoughtto be trailing until IOC members gathered in Singapore thisweek.

The 2008 Olympics will be held in Beijing.

The victory of London will inevitably be seen as a personaltriumph for British Prime Minister Tony Blair who spent twodays in Singapore wooing IOC members.

Blair flew back to Britain to host the G8 summit inGleneagles, Scotland, after attending the formal opening of theIOC session on Tuesday evening.

French President Jacques Chirac appeared in person at theFrench presentation and made an impassioned plea to the IOC tochoose Paris, but in vain.

He flew to join the summit before the decision wasannounced.

London has twice hosted the Olympics before, in 1908 and1948.