Sport

London's bid well down the pecking order

OLYMPICS/2012  Games: A London bid for the 2012 Olympics was given an unexpected boost by sport's most powerful man yesterday…

Wed Jan 15 2003 - 00:00

OLYMPICS/2012  Games: A London bid for the 2012 Olympics was given an unexpected boost by sport's most powerful man yesterday. However, the man with his hands on the cash said a bid was low in the pecking order for government funding.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said he believed London had a strong chance of hosting the 2012 Olympics - if Britain gives the bid its whole-hearted support.

But British Chancellor Gordon Brown warned that the health service and education would take priority over a bid to bring the Olympic Games to London for the first time since 1948. "We must get it right in terms of costs. I do not think people would want the health service to lose money or education to lose money," Brown said.

Rogge had told the BBC that Britain started with great assets if it could make a concerted bid - much the same as he told French president Jacques Chirac last week of the possibility of a Paris bid.

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"London has a reputation as a great cosmopolitan city, you have the reputation of the United Kingdom as one of the strongest economic powers and a stable political system," Rogge said. "You have the love of sport of the English people, you have the reputation of English sport, you have the heritage of what sport has meant in your country.

"The success of the Sydney Games was based, for a great part, on the love of sport by the Australians and the enthusiasm of all the Australians, the volunteers and the professionals who worked for the bid.

"That's the bottom line. You need to have that. Above that, of course, you need a very strong bid on technical terms."

The 60-year-old Belgian, who took over the IOC presidency in 2001, claimed that last year's Commonwealth Games in Manchester had done a lot of good in convincing the world of Britain's ability to host a major event.

The British Olympic Association has insisted London remains a leading contender to host the 2012 Games despite an internal report commissioned by Sports Secretary Tessa Jowell which is believed to question the capital's ability to win a multi-million pound bidding war against the likes of Paris and New York.