Yesterday in Singapore, 21 years later and shaped by years in politics but still impassioned by the meaning of sport, Lord Coe achieved a triumph that was indeed poetic. He delivered the 2012 Olympics to London not as a triumph of planning and any surefire certainties but a reach of the spirit, the kindling of a dream. But the government that trumpeted the win was voted out, in large part due to the fiasco of spiralling costs. Athens delivered a thrilling performance as hosts - marred by the disqualification of the sprinters Kostas Kenteris, pictured, and Katerina Thanou - but it was achieved at a huge cost to the country.. ATHENS, 2004 Greece greeted the news in 1997 that it was bringing the Olympics home with an outpouring of national pride. Long before he was ennobled, when he was winning his second Olympic gold on a smoggy night in Los Angeles, young Sebastian Coe was described as the Lord Byron of the running track It was a prophetic utterance.
That does not go down well," one man said.Members of the Paris delegation pointed a finger of recrimination at London. IOC rules state that one candidate city is not supposed to denigrate another. Many Paris officials believe the London campaign did denigrate Paris and, at the very least, encouraged a campaign of denigration in the British press.The former Olympic judo champion David Douillet, in Singapore with the Paris team, said: "We don't understand This is not logical Obviously the London tactics were the right ones. This is not the way we acted and we would never act that way. We respected the rules."Another official of the Paris bid said it appeared "our greatest asset - the fact we had most of the facilities in place - became our handicap ...
[the IOC] preferred a new stadium, which existed only in the imagination."The decision is also a further blow to the prestige and popularity of President Jacques Chirac, who is already languishing in opinion polls with an approval rating of just 21 per cent.The rivalsNEW YORKNew York tried to shrug off its loss, quietly abandoning a planned party in Rockefeller Centre and acknowledging the bid may have been sabotaged by squabbles over the main stadium. "We don't need reassurance from the International Olympic Committee or anyone else that New York is a world-class city," Representative Anthony Weiner, a candidate for mayor, said tartly.MADRIDDisappointment was shortlived among hundreds who gathered in Madridīs Plaza Mayor to watch the verdict live on a giant screen. Many shrugged and offered congratulations to passing Britons. "London's was a good bid," one man said, his crumpled Spanish flag trailing on the cobblestones.