London launches 2012 Olympic bid

London's bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games comes with a promise of huge new investment in transport and accommodation, the authorities in the British capital have revealed.

Both London and Paris are front runners to host the games with Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, New York, Istanbul, Leipzig and Havana also competing.

The centrepiece of the London bid, due to be launched on Friday by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is a purpose-built stadium and Olympic village in Stratford, a suburb to the east of the capital, which will be home to the 11,000 athletes.

The 80,000-seat stadium will host A massively improved transport system for London, with enhanced Tube and mainline services, is part of the British capital's bid.
half the events, with Wimbledon and the new Wembley football stadium also among possible venues.

It has been estimated that with 500,000 visitors expected every day, more than £17 billion would have to be spent to improve roads, trains and the Tube, and 20,000 new hotel rooms would be built.

A massively improved transport system for London, with enhanced Tube and mainline services, is also part of the British capital's Olympic bid.

There will be faster and more frequent-services, with 10 trains an hour running between King's Cross and Stratford, a journey that will take six-and-a-half minutes.

The designated trains, using the Channel Tunnel high-speed link (CTRL), will whisk visitors from central London to the Games at 100mph. The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) has now launched the bidding programme to build the new rolling stock.

An SRA spokesman said, "We have confirmed that we are going ahead with the new trains, which will be ready when the London end of the CTRL opens in 2007."

An estimated 11,000 athletes are expected to compete in the 2012 Games. They will be accompanied by 10,000 coaches, 20,000 journalists and up to nine million spectators. An athletes' village, with 17,000 beds, built within the Olympic precinct at Stratford, will later be converted to low-cost social housing to help ease London's housing shortage.