Olympic Bid 2012: Rio Relegates London to an Olympic Bronze

London is currently ranked third among the nine cities bidding to host the 2012 Olympic Games, according to a survey conducted by the leading website devoted to predicting who will win such contests.

GamesBids.com rates Paris as the favourite, marginally ahead of London, but surprisingly Rio de Janeiro sits between the two in what is shaping up to be the closest contest in the history of Olympic bidding.

The American-based website, which correctly predicted that Beijing would win the right to host the 2008 Olympics and Vancouver the 2010 winter games after a close contest with the South Korean city of PyeongChang, uses a complex mathematical model to rank the cities.

It does not rate the bids based on technical quality, rather on how they will perform based on International Olympic Committee voting patterns. History has shown that often the best technical bids do not win and that other factors such as geo-politics usually have a more significant impact.

Toronto's bid, for example, was considered to be technically superior to Beijing's when the Chinese capital was awarded the right to host the 2008 games three years ago.

In figures released yesterday, Paris has the top score of 61.83 with Rio receiving 60.77 and London 60.07 using the website's BidIndex model. A statement released by GamesBids.com says: "Initial results illustrate a clear division between the top contenders and outsiders in the 2012 race, suggesting what the May shortlist might look like."

New York, often regarded as the favourite by commentators not familiar with the IOC voting system, is ranked only fifth behind Istanbul, with Madrid completing the top six. "All achieved strong scores which . . . is interpreted as strong, contending bids that have many similarities to historically successful bids," it adds.

The initial rankings have been released this week because all the applicant cities have to submit a questionnaire to the IOC at its Lausanne headquarters on Thursday which the organisation will use to determine whether they can proceed to the next round of the bidding process.

GamesBids.com says it does not expect the final three bids - Moscow, Leipzig and Havana - to be shortlisted when the IOC announces its decision on May 18.

Rio is ranked surprisingly highly because its geography puts it in a favourable time zone for American television, the Olympics paymasters, and it is on a continent that has never staged the games. However, there are serious doubts over whether the fragile Brazilian economy could sustain funding for both the 2012 Olympics and the 2014 football World Cup, which it is due to stage.

London officials will draw encouragement from their early ranking because, as GamesBids.com notes, "the race has barely begun and only about 25% of the information needed is available".