2012 Summer Olympics

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad, will be held in London, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012, followed by the 2012 Paralympic Games from 29 August to 9 September.

London will become the first city to host the modern Olympic Games three times; London also hosted the 1908 Summer Olympics and the 1948 Summer Olympics.

The bidding process

By the bid submission deadline of 15 July 2003, nine cities had submitted bids to host the 2012 Olympics. These cities were Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig, London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, Paris, and Rio de Janeiro.

On 18 May 2004, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reduced the number of cities to five: London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, and Paris.

The IOC inspection team visited the five candidate cities during February and March of 2005.

On 6 June 2005 the International Olympic Committee released its evaluation reports for the five candidate cities. Although these reports did not contain any scores or rankings, the evaluation report for Paris was seen as the most positive, followed closely by London.

During the process, many thought Paris was most likely to win the nomination, largely because this was its third bid in recent years. In late August 2004, reports came out predicting a London and Paris tie in the 2012 bid.

On 6 July 2005, London was announced as the winner of the bid at the Raffles City Convention Centre in Singapore.