Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe warns that the race to land the
2012 Olympics is far from won, even if his city remains the
favorite.
"We must win on July 6, but nothing is certain yet as the
competition is very tough," Delanoe told France Inter radio
station on Monday.
The French capital is competing against London, Madrid, New York
and Moscow. The International Olympic Committee selects the winner
July 6 in Singapore.
"It's true that Paris has a very good dossier, and there is a
lot of enthusiasm ... but the others are also good," Delanoe said.
Delanoe added the games would give Paris an "extraordinary
chance to open itself to others" and represents an "extraordinary
challenge for urban development."
Paris hosted the Summer Games in 1900 and 1924.
Blair's boost
Prime Minister Tony Blair reiterated his
support Monday for London's bid for the 2012 Olympics.
"We've got a strong bid," Blair said at his monthly news
conference. "We've just got to go and make our case."
London is considered a serious contender to front-runner Paris
in a race that also includes New York, Madrid and Moscow. The
winner will be announced by the IOC on July 6.
"I'm confident in the strength of our bid," Blair added.
"It's a matter for the IOC to determine."
Blair will be going to Singapore to lobby for London, but will
leave before the vote to return to Britain to host a summit in
Gleneagles, Scotland.
Rogge's take
IOC president Jacques Rogge predicts the winning
margin will be slim in the vote for the host of the 2012 Summer
Games.
Rogge told the sports newspaper L'Equipe the vote differential
between the top two contenders July 6 is expected to be much
tighter than between Beijing and Toronto for the 2008 Games.
"There's no question of a difference of 30 votes, like the
divide between Beijing and Toronto for 2008," Rogge said.
"The race is extremely tight," he added. "All the bids are
excellent."
Spanish bombing
Madrid's mayor insists a car bomb attack
close to a proposed Olympic stadium will not affect the capital's
bid to host the 2012 Summer Games.
"An attack can't alter the criteria under which the Olympic
city for 2012 is selected," Alberto Ruiz Gallardon, also president
of the 2012 bid, said Saturday.
The bomb went off at a parking lot outside the Peineta complex,
a key site in Madrid's 2012 proposal. No one was injured and damage
was minimal. Two warning calls had been made in the name of the
Basque group ETA, which has killed more than 800 people since 1968.
Gallardon said Madrid has "excellent security," the second
time this year he had to make such a statement.
In February, a car bomb exploded within walking distance of
Madrid's Ifema convention center, another proposed venue for six
sports, including badminton and weightlifting. That explosion
slightly injured 43 people and came three days after IOC inspectors
ended a four-day tour of the city.
Security concerns for Spain soared after suspected
al-Qaida-linked extremists killed 191 people in attacks on four
commuter trains in Madrid in 2004.
Drut, adieu
Guy Drut, an IOC member and a former French
sports minister, has stepped aside from Paris' bid for the 2012
Olympics because of his role in a corruption trial. He said he
won't go to Singapore for next week's IOC vote to avoid any chance
of hurting the city's capital's candidacy.
Bernard Amsalem, president of the French track and field
federation, called Drut's move "a very wise decision."
Drut, the 1976 Olympic 110-meter hurdles champion and a member
of the Paris bid committee, is among dozens of political figures
allegedly involved in a political party-funding scandal during the
1990s.
He said Sunday he wants to prevent "any abusive and malicious
exploitation of the court case concerning me, and in which I
believe I will be found innocent."
Drut is one of three French IOC members. IOC members from a
country with a bid city are ineligible to vote as long as their
candidate is in the race.
Salzburg, 2014
Austria's government agreed Monday to support
Salzburg's bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, promising to
accept some financial risk if the games fail to make a profit.
The agreement makes it more likely the city will proceed with a
bid despite a nonbinding voter referendum that rejected the idea.
"Our summit has solved the financial discrepancies," Salzburg
Mayor Heinz Schaden said on state television. "As the official
bidder, we also have to bear with the risks, but the national and
regional governments have now agreed to help us out."
Pyeongchang, South Korea, and Oestersund, Sweden, have announced
plans for the 2014 bid. Pyeongchang and Salzburg lost to Vancouver,
British Columbia, in the vote for the 2010 Winter Games. Austria
hosted the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck in 1964 and 1976.
Bids for 2014 must be submitted to the IOC by July 28, and the
host will be selected in 2007.
Kim's parole
Kim Un-yong, once one of the most powerful
Olympic figures, is among about 700 convicts to be released on parole
this week in South Korea, the government said Monday.
Kim is serving a two-year prison term on corruption charges. He
resigned from the IOC last month rather than face an expulsion vote
at the IOC meeting in Singapore in July. The 74-year-old Kim had
been suspended from the IOC for more than a year after he was
accused of embezzlement and bribery in South Korea.
Under South Korean law, a convict must have served one-third of
his sentence and pay all fines and forfeitures to be eligible for
parole.