Vanhalen 0 Report post Posted November 19, 2004 PARIS Two main sites in the north and west, 6km from Olympic village 80% of sports within 10 minutes of athletes' village Most venues already built, including Olympic stadium (Stade de France) Venues include Roland Garros and Parc des Princes Beach volleyball beneath the Eiffel Tower Olympic transport lane There were reservations about bidding after Paris came third behind Beijing and Toronto in the race for 2008 and lost out to Barcelona in 1992. But the French capital has been installed as favourite for 2012 after scoring highly when the International Olympic Committee evaluated the bids in May. Paris insists it can provide the ultimate experience for athletes, spectators, officials and journalists alike, and is campaigning under the slogan 'L'amour des jeux' (love of the Games). As well as enjoying a high profile as a centre of culture and tourism, the city has many of the key Olympic facilities in place already. The 1998 football World Cup saw the building of the Olympic-standard Stade de France, which staged the final, and the city's accommodation capacity and transport network are well developed. The 2003 World Athletics Championships were seen as an overall success, and the 2007 Rugby World Cup would also serve as a useful warm-up exercise. PARIS Population: 2,000,000 Estimated total cost: £4bn Olympic history: 1900, 1924 Winter Games 1924, 1968, 1992 Other French bids: 1992, 2008 Paris plans to stage beach volleyball beneath the Eiffel Tower, but its main venues would be in two groups at the edge of the city. One would be the western area of Porte de Saint-Cloud, which includes the Parc des Princes stadium (football) and the home of the French Open tennis, Roland Garros. The northern area near the Porte de la Chapelle includes the Stade de France, which would be used for athletics, the opening and closing ceremonies and football, which would also be played in Nantes, Lens, Lyon and Marseille. The athletes' village would be between the two zones, less than 10 minutes away. Some of the cycling and shooting would take place near the former royal palace of Versailles, and yachting would be at La Rochelle. Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe expects the Paris bid to cost about £15m, with the estimated cost of hosting the Games nearly £4bn. "We have made a choice of compactness, quality of life, long-term development and what we will bequeath the Olympic Games," said Delanoe. "We, the organisers, might be forgotten but the 2012 Paris Olympic Games will not be forgotten," he added. LONDON An overview of some of the new details revealed on Friday about how London would host the 2012 Olympics. Ticketing There will be 9.6 million tickets for sale - 8 million for the Olympics and 1.6 million for the Paralympics. Organisers say 75% of all tickets will cost less than £50 and offer free travel on London transport. A sell-out rate of 82% for the Olympic Games and 63% for the Paralympics is estimated. Tickets for the athletics will start at £15 and there will be 20,000 £10 tickets for the Olympic Park to watch events on big screens. Olympic Village The village will have 17,320 beds and provide each athlete with 16 square metres floor space. Each apartment will have a TV, internet access, a private courtyard. The dining hall will cater for 5,500 athletes at a time. Legacy The Olympic Village Polyclinic will be converted into a lifelong learning centre for the east London community, with a nursery, primary and secondary schools. The village will be converted into 3,600 apartments, most of them will be affordable housing. The media and press centre would become a creative industries centre for east London. After the Games four arenas would be 'deconstructed' and relocated to other parts of the UK along with the swimming pools that are used for water polo and the 50m training pools. Charities will be given the sports equipment used in the Games for free. Political commitment A Cabinet-level minister would be responsible for delivering the Games. Government will create an Olympic Delivery Authority to ensure delivery of Olympic infrastructure and new venues. There will also be a Cabinet-level Olympic Security Committee to coordinate all security planning. Transport 80% of athletes would be within 20 minutes of their events and 97% of athletes within 30 minutes of their events. 93% of training venues are to be within 30 minutes of the athletes village. The aim is for 90% of venues to be served by three or more forms of public transport. There will be two major park and ride sites off the M25 with a combined capacity of 12,000 cars, within 25 minutes of the Olympic Park. There are 9,000 planned park and ride spaces to be made available at Ebbsfleet where spectators can board a 10-minute javelin service to the Olympic Park. This is the same station where continental spectators travelling by Eurostar will join the javelin to the Olympic Park. It is predicted that on event days 78% of spectators are likely to travel from within London and 22% from the rest of the UK and Europe. Organisers estimate 80% of visitors and staff of the Games will use rail services to reach the Olympic Park. Low or no-emission vehicles will be used to transport Olympic athletes and officials. A tri-generation plant will supply electricity, heat and chilled water to the Olympic Park using technology which produces 33% lower CO2 emissions than from the electricity grid. By 2012 it is estimated that over 135,000 hotel rooms will be available within 50km of the Olympic Park, up from 120,000 presently. According to London 2012, for the first-time in any Games live Olympic backdrop presentation facilities will be available to broadcast rights holders via rooftop studios on the main press centre with a direct view of the Olympic Stadium and Park. NEW YORK New York's 2012 Olympic bid team says it is confident that US foreign policy will not damage the city's chances of hosting the Games for the first time. NYC2012 executive director Jay Kriegel says International Olympic Committee members will not allow the war on Iraq to influence how they vote next July. "There was no question from the IOC on foreign policy," he told BBC Sport. "From everything the IOC's done in this process, it's clear there's been a very conscientious and serious approach." The same issue could theoretically affect London's bid, but Kriegel said: "The IOC will obviously make its own decision. "We have submitted what we think is an extremely strong technical bid, and we think a New York Games will produce tremendous benefits for the world of sport." New York has been seen as an outsider for 2012 after it was ranked fourth of the five bidding cities by the International Olympic Committee in May. But Kriegel believes its final plans, unveiled by the city on Wednesday, show "major modifications" which make the bid a much more impressive proposition than it was six months ago. "We think we have made significant changes in the areas the IOC focused on. We've looked very hard at what they talked about, and we have responded," he said. The IOC voiced concerns in May about New York's planned athletes' village and the ability of its transport plans to handle the Games. But the city has promised to deliver an athlete-focused Games, with most venues within 20 minutes travel time of the Olympic village. "Our original athletes' village plan had been done in a bit of haste and had been a rather traditional high-rise project," said Kriegel. "Our new plans are dramatically different. They shift most of the apartments into low and middle-level buildings. "It eliminates the towers, which the IOC didn't like, and creates 43 acres of open space." Kriegel said New York, in keeping with the IOC's desire to see venue "clusters", had modified its plans to focus on three core areas. The first is the planned Olympic stadium on the west side of Manhattan, and New York's bid team insist work will begin before the IOC decision in Singapore on 6 July. The second zone is around the Flushing Meadows tennis complex and the third along the riverfront near Yankee Stadium. New York's concept is based on an Olympic X, with two transport axes - one rail and one water - intersecting at the athletes' village in Queens, across the water from the United Nations building. Plans to use ferries, however, have been scaled down, with more emphasis on buses. Paris was ranked top ahead of Madrid, London, New York and Moscow by the IOC in May. But New York bid leader Daniel Doctoroff said: "In seven of the last nine bidding contests for Winter and Summer Games, the favourite nine months or a year out has ended up not winning." MADRID Madrid has promised to host a 'green' Olympics if it is given the Games in 2012. The Spanish city is one of the few major European capitals yet to have hosted the Games and mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon said: "Respect for the environment governs all aspects of this project. "Madrid will use the opportunity of this candidacy to introduce renewable energies in all installations and hydrogen in public transport and could celebrate the first games without private transport." Madrid's only previous attempt at a bid was in 1972, when Munich won, and the recent staging of the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992 could be a mixed blessing. Barcelona's success boosted Spain's reputation on the sporting stage. But the timing makes it less likely that the event would return there just 20 years on. The Madrid bid was ranked second, however, in the IOC's evaluation of the candidate cities in May. Its plan revolves around three main venue zones, close to each other and to the city centre. MADRID Population: 2,800,000 Olympic history: 1992 (Barcelona) Other Spanish bids: 2008 (Seville), 1972 (Madrid) The eastern sector will house the Olympic stadium - a renovated version of the current athletics stadium - the aquatic centre, velodrome, media and press centres and a number of other venues. So the bid has already enlisted several of Real Madrid's major stars to help its campaign, and the famous Santiago Bernabeu stadium is inked in as one of the central venues. Equestrian events, modern pentathlon, archery, mountain biking, triathlon and basketball will be staged in the west. Outside the city, rowing and canoeing will be 47km away at Aranjuez, sailing in Majorca and football preliminaries in Alicante, Barcelona, Cordoba and Malaga. The city says 70% of the infrastructure it needs to host the Games is already in place, and it has a good transport network and plentiful hotel accommodation. About 600-900m euros are expected to be invested on new sports venues, with hotel room capacity set to increase by 29,000 to 80,000 in 2012. MOSCOW Moscow believes its ability to stage every event inside the city borders is the key to its bid for the 2012 Games. Deputy mayor Valery Shantsev said Moscow would stage the "most compact games ever" if it won the bid. "Our main argument to stage the 2012 Olympics here in Moscow is that the whole of Russia wants it and the second most important thing is that we know how to do it," he said. Russia believes hosting the Games would make up for the disappointment of what happened last time they staged them in 1980. The Games were weakened by an American-led boycott following the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan a year earlier. But the International Olympic Committee will take some convincing that Moscow is up to hosting in 2012. The IOC's evaluation of the five candidate cities in May placed Moscow fifth and last, the Russian capital lagging behind in areas such as infrastructure, accommodation, project and legacy, safety and security. MOSCOW Population: 8,600,000 Olympic history: Hosted in 1980 Other Russian bids: 2004 (St Petersburg) Rundown on the rivals Its plan involves holding most sporting events in a series of complexes clustered around the Moscow River. And it is estimated that 60,000 visitors would be able to travel by boat from 70 passenger piers to the venues. The most distant would be the sailing venue in the north of the city, and the Moscow bid say 71% of the required facilities are already in place. "The IOC is trying to keep down the cost, getting away from gigantic Games and spending a lot of money," said sports minister and former hockey player Vyacheslav Fetisov. "We already have most of the infrastructure in place and it should give us an advantage over some other candidates." The city plans to spend nearly £14m on the bid and estimates it would make a profit of almost £523m on staging the Games Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MrRant 0 Report post Posted November 19, 2004 I don't think France, Madrid or Moscow would be the best places. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Vitamin X Report post Posted November 19, 2004 I think Paris or New York would be the best places. Beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower? That sounds pretty badass. But I find it almost kind of amazing that New York has never hosted an Olympics before. Probably WAY too congested for that to happen, though. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Art Sandusky 0 Report post Posted November 19, 2004 And Bejing isn't? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Vitamin X Report post Posted November 19, 2004 At least it's more spread out than New York. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Precious Roy 0 Report post Posted November 19, 2004 "Madrid will use the opportunity of this candidacy to introduce renewable energies in all installations and hydrogen in public transport and could celebrate the first games without private transport." Sweet. Go Madrid! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
starvenger 0 Report post Posted November 19, 2004 NEW YORK New York's 2012 Olympic bid team says it is confident that US foreign policy will not damage the city's chances of hosting the Games for the first time. NYC2012 executive director Jay Kriegel says International Olympic Committee members will not allow the war on Iraq to influence how they vote next July. Probably not, but the 2010 Winter Olympics in VanCity will. Personally I think that they're wasting their time with this bid, but I suppose you can never underestimate the power of the US television market on this... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Vanhalen 0 Report post Posted November 19, 2004 I'm biased of course, but I honestly believe its our time, America had Atlanta 96, Spain Barca 92, France had the World Cup in 98, Moscow is not up to the task, we could host it and we havent had a major sporting event since 1966(yeah i know about euro 96 of course, but that isnt at the level of a world cup or a olympics) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kahran Ramsus 0 Report post Posted November 20, 2004 This is between London & Paris. None of the others have a shot. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
