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London 2012 bid win may be mistake
![]() IOC president Jacques Rogge reads out the result of the 2012 Olympic bid LONDON, England -- London's winning bid for the 2012 Olympics could have been helped by an IOC member pressing the wrong button during the voting, according to a BBC report. The report says that the member mistakenly voted for Paris in the third round of voting in Singapore on July 6. This gave Paris 33 votes to Madrid's 31, instead of 32-32 which would have prompted a vote-off before the final round. Madrid had been ahead after the second round. London then beat Paris 54-50 in the final round of voting, although it is widely believed that Madrid would have been a bigger threat to London had they got through to the final round where Paris votes would have moved across to their bid. Alex Gilady, an Israeli IOC member and part of the London 2012 Co-ordination Commission, has revealed that another IOC member, thought to be Lambis Nikolaou of Greece, made the mistake. If true, it would help to explain why Madrid had 32 votes in the second round of voting but lost one of them in the third round. It also explains the long delay before the third round results were announced. "Talking about this now is very difficult because we are dealing with a hypothesis and we can't change what actually happened," said Alejandro Blanco, head of the Spanish Olympic Committee. "In any case for me it is deplorable that a voting procedure of such importance in which so many interests and so many emotions are at stake depended on the behavior of someone who didn't even have their mind on the job." GIlady revealed: "Let us say we think we know what happened, that one member made a mistake and voted for Paris rather than Madrid. "If he had voted for Madrid it would have been 32-32 and we would have to have a vote-off between Madrid and Paris. "In the vote-off, all the votes supporting London would have gone to Madrid because the fear was that Paris had a big chance to win. Madrid would have won against Paris, coming to the final against London. "There, all the votes from Paris would have gone to support Madrid. Madrid would have won. That is now what we think happened. This is what you call good fortune and good luck."
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