Nine cities submitting bids to host the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics were recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The Committee shortlisted five of them—London, Madrid, Moscow, New York City, and Paris—from which London eventually prevailed; thus becoming the first city to host the Olympic Games for a third time. The bidding process for the 2012 Olympics was considered one of the most hotly contested in the history of the IOC. Paris was seen by some as the front-runner for much of the campaign, but skillful lobbying by London's supporters and an inspirational final presentation by Sebastian Coe led to the success of its bid.

After a technical evaluation of the nine original bids, the top five were shortlisted on 18 May 2004, becoming official candidates. The remaining applicant cities—Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig and Rio de Janeiro—were eliminated. Four of the five candidate cities were prominent national capitals, which lent an increased competitive interest to the final bidding phase. Paris and Madrid earned the top scores during the application phase, but in early 2005, a more thorough evaluation of the candidates put Paris and London in a close race that became tighter as the final vote approached. On 6 July 2005, in a four-round exhaustive ballot of the IOC (gathered at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore), Moscow, New York City and Madrid were eliminated in the first three rounds. London won the final round by a margin of four votes over Paris and secured the right to host the 2012 Olympics.

In the month after the election, members of the Paris 2012 delegation argued that the London delegation had violated IOC rules. The key points in the accusations were London 2012's abortive athlete incentive initiative and lobbying by then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair. A public statement by IOC President Jacques Rogge dismissed these accusations, stating that the competition had been fair. Another controversy occurred during the bidding process when an undercover investigation by British television series Panorama revealed a corruption scandal associated with IOC member Ivan Slavkov and Olympic agents, who offered to deliver votes from IOC members to any 2012 Olympic bid in return for financial favours. Still recovering from the effects of the Salt Lake City scandal, the IOC reacted swiftly and punitively toward the rule-breaking individuals.

Bidding process The Olympic bidding process begins with the submission of a city's application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by its National Olympic Committee (NOC) and ends with the election of the host city by the members of the IOC during an ordinary session. The process is governed by the Olympic Charter, as stated in Chapter 5, Rule 34.

Since 1999, the process has consisted of two phases. During the first phase, which begins immediately after the bid submission deadline, the "applicant cities" are required to answer a questionnaire covering themes of importance to a successful Games organisation. This information allows the IOC to analyse the cities' hosting capacities and the strengths and weaknesses of their plans. Following a detailed study of the submitted questionnaires and ensuing reports, the IOC Executive Board selects the cities that are qualified to proceed to the next phase. The second phase is the true candidature stage: the accepted applicant cities (from now on referred to as "candidate cities") are required to submit a second questionnaire in the form of an extended, more detailed, candidature file. These files are carefully studied by the IOC Evaluation Commission, a group composed of IOC members, representatives of international sport federations, NOCs, athletes, the International Paralympic Committee, and international experts in various fields. The members of the Evaluation Commission then make four-day inspection visits to each of the candidate cities, where they check the proposed venues and are briefed about details of the themes covered in the candidature file. The Evaluation Commission communicates the results of its inspections in a report sent to the IOC members up to one month before the electing IOC Session.

The IOC Session in which a host city is elected takes place in a country that did not submit an application to stage the Olympics. The election is made by the assembled active IOC members (excluding honorary and honour members), each possessing one vote. Members from countries that have a city taking part in the election cannot vote while the city is in the running. The voting is conducted in a succession of rounds until one bid achieves an absolute majority of votes; if this does not happen in the first round, the bid with the fewest votes is eliminated and another voting round begins. In the case of a tie for the lowest number of votes, a special runoff vote is carried out, with the winner proceeding to the next round. After each round, the eliminated bid is announced. Following the announcement of the host city, the successful bid delegation signs the "Host City Contract" with the IOC, which delegates the responsibilities of the Games organisation to the city and respective NOC.

Evaluation of applicant cities The deadline to submit applications for the 2012 Summer Olympics was 15 July 2003. The nine cities that submitted bids before that date also met the 15 January 2004 deadline for submission of the first phase questionnaire. Through analysis of the questionnaires, the IOC gave a weighted-average score to each city based on the scores obtained in each of the questionnaire's eleven themes: political and social support, general infrastructure, sports venues, Olympic Village, environment, accommodation, transport, security, past experience, finance, and legacy. If a bid's score was higher than six (IOC's predefined benchmark score), the city was considered highly capable of hosting the Games; otherwise, its chances were very slim. On 18 May 2004, the IOC announced the cities accepted as candidates:

Paris — scored 8.5 (bid details) Madrid — scored 8.3 (bid details) London — scored 7.6 (bid details) New York City — scored 7.5 (bid details) Moscow — scored 6.5 (bid details) Leipzig — scored 6.0 Rio de Janeiro — scored 5.1 Istanbul — scored 4.8 Havana — scored 3.7

+ Table of scores given by the IOC Working Group to assess the quality and feasibility of the 2012 Applicant cities Criteria Weight Paris Leipzig New York Moscow Istanbul Havana London Madrid Rio de Janeiro Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Accommodation 5 10.0 10.0 5.2 5.5 10.0 10.0 6.2 7.4 5.9 6.5 3.3 4.1 10.0 10.0 7.9 8.4 5.0 5.6 Environmental conditions and impact 2 6.6 8.6 7.4 9.0 5.0 7.6 4.6 7.6 4.6 7.6 5.0 7.0 7.2 8.6 7.2 8.6 5.2 7.6 Experience from past sports events 2 7.6 9.0 4.8 6.8 6.2 8.0 4.6 7.0 3.4 6.0 3.0 5.6 4.8 6.8 6.0 7.4 5.0 7.6 Finance 3 6.0 8.0 6.8 8.5 5.0 7.5 4.4 7.2 4.2 6.1 3.8 5.4 6.0 8.0 6.0 8.0 3.0 6.7 General infrastructure 5 6.8 7.8 4.0 5.5 5.3 7.0 4.8 6.8 2.7 4.1 1.5 3.2 5.3 7.0 7.5 8.5 3.1 4.6 Government support, legal issues, public opinion 3 7.2 8.0 7.2 8.0 6.2 7.1 6.7 7.5 7.2 7.9 7.0 7.7 6.5 7.2 7.5 8.3 7.0 7.7 Olympic Village(s) 3 6.8 8.3 6.3 8.2 5.3 7.7 6.6 8.0 4.2 6.3 4.3 6.4 5.5 8.0 7.3 8.7 6.3 8.2 Overall project and legacy 3 8.0 9.0 4.0 7.0 5.0 8.0 5.0 7.0 3.0 5.0 2.0 5.0 6.0 8.0 8.0 9.0 4.0 6.0 Safety and security 3 7.3 8.3 6.4 7.4 6.3 7.2 5.2 6.4 3.4 4.6 3.0 4.0 6.7 7.7 6.4 7.4 3.9 4.8 Sports venues 4 6.7 8.0 5.2 7.1 6.2 7.7 5.2 7.1 4.3 6.0 3.7 5.4 5.2 7.1 7.4 8.7 4.9 7.0 Transport concept 3 6.5 8.0 5.4 7.8 4.5 6.7 4.1 6.2 3.4 5.1 2.7 4.8 4.8 6.7 7.9 9.0 3.6 5.7 TOTAL AVERAGE 8.5 6.0 7.5 6.5 4.8 3.7 7.6 8.3 5.1

The five highest-rated applicants progressed to the next phase as official candidate cities. As stipulated, the IOC granted them the right to use the Olympic rings on their candidature emblem, together with a label identifying each as a Candidate City.

Evaluation of candidate cities By 15 November 2004, all candidates had submitted their candidature files to the IOC. After a period of analysis by the IOC, the cities were visited by the IOC Evaluation Commission, consisting of twelve members and chaired by Moroccan IOC member Nawal El Moutawakel. The four-day visits occurred between 3 February and 17 March 2005:

Madrid — 3–6 February London — 16–19 February New York City — 21–24 February Paris — 9–12 March Moscow — 14–17 March

The Parisian bid suffered two setbacks during the inspection: a number of strikes and demonstrations coincided with the visit, and a report was released stating that Guy Drut, IOC member and one of the key members of Paris's bid team, faced charges over alleged political party financial corruption.

On 6 June 2005, the IOC released the inspection team's evaluation reports of the five candidate cities. Although these documents did not contain scores or rankings, the report for Paris was considered the most positive, followed closely by London, which had narrowed most of the gap observed at the time of the first-phase evaluation in 2004. New York City and Madrid also obtained very positive evaluations, while Moscow was considered the weakest bid. On the same day, New York City's bid suffered a major setback following the report that the State of New York refused to fund West Side Stadium, a New York 2012 centrepiece. The New York City campaign devised an alternative plan within a week, but such a major change with only one month remaining before the final vote damaged the city's chances.

Throughout the bidding process and leading up to the vote at the 117th IOC Session, Paris was widely seen as the favourite, particularly as its bid was the city's third in recent history (previous bids being for 1992 and 2008). London was originally seen as lagging behind Paris by a considerable margin, but this situation began to reverse with the appointment of Sebastian Coe as the head of London 2012, on 19 May 2004. In late August 2004, reports emerged that predicted a tie between London and Paris. In the final run-up to the 117th IOC Session, London and Paris appeared to be in an increasingly close contest. On 1 July 2005, IOC president Jacques Rogge, when asked who the winner would be, told the assembled press, "I cannot predict it since I don't know how the IOC members will vote. But my gut feeling tells me that it will be very close. Perhaps it will come down to a difference of say ten votes, or maybe less."

Final selection process

The opening ceremony of the 117th IOC Session was held at the Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay in Singapore on 5 July 2005. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was the guest of honour and officially opened the session. Song, dance and martial arts exhibitions with the theme "One Voice, One Rhythm, One World" began the ceremony.

On 6 July 2005, the election day, the IOC Session was held at the Raffles City Convention Centre. It began at 1:00 UTC with the one-hour final presentations of the candidate cities, followed by a half-hour press briefing, in the following order: Paris, New York City, Moscow, London and Madrid. The bid presentations ended at 9:00 UTC and a presentation of the Evaluation Commission's final report preceded the election. Of the 116 active IOC members, 17 could not vote in the first round, leaving 99 members able to exert their voting rights.

+ IOC members unable to vote in the 2012 Host City Election (17) Members from countrieswith candidate cities (13) Other members (4) Jean-Claude Killy Henri Serandour Anita DeFrantz James L. Easton Robert Ctvrtlik Vitali Smirnov Shamil Tarpischev Alexander Popov Anne, Princess Royal Craig Reedie Phil Craven Infanta Doña Pilar de Borbón Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. Jacques Rogge (IOC president – allowed to vote, however elects not to vote) Ivan Slavkov (suspended) Nikos Filaretos (absent) Guy Drut (absent)