Posted: July 6, 2005

Olympics: Reaction From IAAF President Following Election Of London As 2012 Olympic Host City

SINGAPORE - IAAF President Lamine Diack has made the following statement following the election of London as the host city for the 2012 edition of the Olympic Games.

"I would like to congratulate London. There were five excellent candidates, which are all great cities and were all supported in Singapore by the highest political authorities. This shows how important the Olympic movement has now become and I believe that any of the candidates would have been capable of organising a great edition of the Olympic Games in 2012. On the day though, London's presentation was excellent, and this was a race with only one winner. The IAAF is pleased that London will host these Games in 2012 because Great Britain has always been a great country for sport and particularly our sport of athletics. I was impressed by the plans to develop sporting facilities over the next years, and I would like to underline the fact that Britain will now have a permanent, state of the art stadium for athletics, and this is something we are very pleased about."