How London really won the games

Web Exclusive: The 2012 Olympic Games were never supposed to be in London. Michael Payne provides the inside story on how the bid was won

London entered the race to host the 2012 Olympic Games back in 2003. It was an outsider and stumbled through the early bid process. London trailed behind the favourite Paris, with Madrid, New York and Moscow all running hard.  London even struggled to find a CEO willing to take on the daunting task of leading the bid.  Perhaps surprisingly, no UK executive saw it as a particularly enticing career move, and eventually the American business woman, Barbara Cassani was persuaded to step forward. By the time the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had completed its initial evaluation of the technical files, London was ranked a distant third in the race and, by some, in an increasingly lacklustre fourth place.