Livingstone admits Paris is in the lead
London Mayor Ken Livingstone has admitted that London is still behind Paris in the race for the 2012 Olympics.
But, he said that he believed London was closing the gap.
Mr Livingstone claimed that Paris appears to have about five more International Olympic Committee (IOC) delegate votes in the bag, but that London is in clear second place ahead of rivals Madrid, New York and Moscow.
“We’ve closed the gap on Paris, but the truth is Paris is still ahead,” Livingstone told the Guardian.
“No city is close to a majority on the first ballot.”
The IOC’s 117 delegates meet in Singapore on July 6 to vote in the first round of ballots, where the bidding city with the lowest level of support is eliminated.
And although the likely result is limited to guesswork at the moment, Livingstone predicts that London has enough support to progress through the early voting stages, but needs to acquire more votes to overhaul Paris.
“At most Paris has got about 30 votes,” Livingstone added.
“We have 25 votes and none of the other cities has more than 20, and we’ve got about 30 to 40 delegates yet to express an opinion.”
