Mayor of Paris unhappy with tactics of London bid

PARIS mayor Bertrand Delanoe has questioned the tactics of the London bid after losing out in the fight to host the 2012 Olympics.

Delanoe congratulated London but sounded a note of caution about what he perceived as dubious methods.

“This is an immense disappointment which I cannot explain,” Delanoe said. “I would like to be fair and congratulate London.

“I was very nice with the Mayor of London and my friend, Ken Livingstone.

“But I was not that nice with all the members of the London bid because I am not quite sure that we took part in the competition with the same tools and spirit.

“On Tuesday, as I was going back to my hotel room to go to bed, I saw people coming out from successive meetings with Tony Blair and the London bid boss, Sebastian Coe.

“I had not understood that that was the way we should have proceeded. I thought that we just needed to provide the best possible bid with the best possible Olympic spirit. And I think this is what most of the IOC members thought about Paris.”

French Olympic Committee president Henri Serandour believes the Paris bid failed after they missed out on the votes previously cast to the other three cities, most notably Madrid in the final round.

He said: “I think there is a problem. It was the third consecutive time our bid was turned down, this is a little harsh to digest. We are going to have to analyse what happened.

“It’s impossible that a bid like ours, which was perfect, a last presentation which gathered unanimity and a vote which takes place normally, was turned around like that.

“It seems the votes that were given to Madrid went to London. We are going to have to find the explanation and it will not be easy. But I guess people make choices and they don’t have to justify themselves.

“We will have to wait for a while to see if our team wants to make another bid to organise the Games. It will be some time before we bid again for the summer or the winter Olympics.”