He was reasonably calm but I haven't seen a smile as wide as that for a long time There were quite a few hugs This was genuinely a big moment for everyone concerned. Mr Powell handed it to Mr Blair, saying: "I think this will be the news we didn't want to hear."But the switchboard operator told Mr Blair: "We've won!" The Prime Minister ran back to the hotel and in the lobby was hugged by his staff. I had never had a moment like it."Colin Jackson, the hurdler, hugged the champion triple-jumper Jonathan Edwards, then Denise Lewis, the 2000 Olympic heptathlon champion, before turning around and embracing David Beckham. "I know I hugged other people but I can't remember who," said Jackson.Just a few feet away the Paris team, their dark uniforms in contrast to the summery beige of London, simply stared ahead at the stage, wondering how the race which they apparently led from the front had been lost.Henri S?ndour, the president of the French National Olympic Committee, could not suppress his disappointment. Nerves had begun to get the better of the Prime Minister who decided to go for a stroll in the hotel grounds with his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell At 12.47pm - 7.47pm in Singapore - his mobile phone rang.
"It will be a while before we become a candidate again," he said.More than 6,000 miles away, Tony Blair, clearly distracted from his duties as host of the G8 Summit, had been watching the drama in Singapore unfold on television in his Gleneagles hotel. "This is our moment," said Lord Coe.The unlikely alliance of British sports stars, politicians and members of the Royal Family embraced as the enormous significance of the bid team's achievement began to sink in."Happiness is a moment like this," said Sir Bobby Charlton. "I thought we had the best bid and that everything was in place but you still wonder."When the last name came out it blew my mind. He arranged a competition with other hospitals to coincide with the London Olympics in 1948.. At 7.46pm in the vast, air-conditioned ballroom of the Raffles Plaza, the faces of Sebastian Coe and his bid team were etched with tension as they watched Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, struggle to open a white envelope to reveal the host of the 2012 Games. Seconds later, and in front of an estimated global television audience of one billion, Lord Coe leapt to his feet and hugged his colleagues, the exhaustion of a two-year campaign lost in the adrenaline of the moment. As jubilation engulfed the London bid team, its chairman - a double Olympic champion - summed up his feelings in four short words.
Waiting for the result to be announced I was more nervous than any race I have been in before."When they announced that it was London, I got a massive adrenalin rush. "The Paralympians will enthuse and inspire a new generation." There will be 1.6 million tickets on sale for the London Paralympics, with the Olympic Park tennis centre in east London being specially built specially for the Paralympics. It's absolutely brilliant."The first Paralympic Games was organised by Sir Ludwig Guttmann, a neurologist working with Second World War veterans with spinal injuries at the specialist Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, who began using sport as part of his patients' rehabilitation. I don't think I've cried so much and I've seen a lot of old guys who I never thought I'd see cry get emotional."Danny Crates, who won a gold medal in Athens, said: "We will do a Paralympics better than anyone else. Eleven of the 20 other venues are within the Olympic Park.The leading Paralympian Dame Tanni Grey Thompson, who was part of the London delegation in Singapore, said: "This is amazing It is a huge day for the Paralympics.