PARIS, 22 May 2003 — Paris officially confirmed its bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics yesterday, 22 months after losing out on the 2008 Games to Beijing.
“We are claiming the honor of staging the 2012 Olympic Games,” the Mayor of the French capital, Bertrand Delanoe, told a press conference.
“We are here to win,” Delanoe added, surrounded by many top French athletes, including Sports Minister and former fencing champion Jean-Francois Lamour and Olympic champions Jean Galfione, Colette Besson, David Douillet and Marie-Claire Restoux. “I am proud to carry this bid, with you,” said Lamour. Philippe Baudillon will be in charge of the bid committee, as he was for the 1992 Games, when Barcelona was preferred to Paris.
New York, Madrid, Havana, Leipzig and London have entered the 2012 race. Moscow should officially join them on Friday and a Brazilian bid is also expected from Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo.
Cities have until July 15 to declare their bids. The winner will be announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in July 2005.
Delanoe insisted the French bid would be dedicated to “sport, the athletes, the audience and mostly to sporting values.”
“We want the Games to be a symbol of the civilization, at the service of peace and at the service of life,” he said.
“We needed this challenge to keep our place on the international stage,” said Henri Srandour, president of the French Olympic Committee.
Paris, which last hosted the summer Olympics in 1924, stood for the 2008 Games but lost out to Beijing. The 2004 Olympics will be held in Athens. France hosted the Winter Games in 1924 in Chamonix, 1968 in Grenoble and 1992 in Albertville.
The Paris bid will rely heavily on the Stade de France, the venue for the 1998 soccer World Cup final which will also host this year’s world athletics championships in August and the 2007 rugby union World Cup final.
