London 2012: London Begins to Believe the Impossible

It was Jonathan Edwards who best summed up the overriding mood when he helped London officially unveil its candidature for the 2012 Olympic Games yesterday.

The former triple-jumper told a selected audience of the bid's stakeholders the only newspaper cutting of his career on show at his home in Newcastle was from his local newspaper The Journal.

The headline above the report of his 1995 world championship victory in Gothenburg, during which he twice broke the world record, was: "I did not dare believe it was possible." He said he felt the same about the Olympics coming to London.

A definite momentum is beginning to build behind the London bid. That can only have been aided by more than 26 international media organisations being represented yesterday from countries as diverse as the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Poland, Israel and China.

Earlier in the week, 25 foreign journalists toured London's proposed facilities. It led the French newspaper Le Monde to comment that it did not realise this was such a serious bid. Similarly, anyone present here yesterday cannot have failed to be impressed by what they saw during the presentation.

The speakers Lord Coe, Tessa Jowell and especially Edwards managed to convey a real sense of excitement about London's ability to stage the biggest show on earth.

Everyone who you would expect to have made an appearance did, either in person or on video. There was Tony Blair, Sir Steve Redgrave, Kelly Holmes and David Beckham. Even Barbara Windsor, Sir Roger Moore and Griff Rhys Jones gave their support.

It capped the best week so far for London's bid. By comparison, Paris's bid launch was left totally in the shade.

Madrid's campaign has been embroiled in controversy. First, their officials went back on a promise to the Football Association not to promote their bid at England's friendly with Spain. Then, the racist chanting towards England's black players undermined Spain's reputation as a civilised nation worldwide.

New York officials already seemed resigned to the fact the Olympics are destined to go to a European city. The Moscow bid, meanwhile, continues to be so low profile as to be almost subterranean.

London, in contrast, is receiving so much publicity even Paris officials admit twice as much is being written about it than the other four bids put together.

That, however, is a double-edged sword. The British press is the most cynical in the world and it is going to take more than a few well-produced videos to convince them after the Wembley and Pickett's Lock fiascos that London is capable of delivering everything it is promising.

More importantly, it will also probably prove harder to convince the 122 International Olympic Committee members, whose vote at a meeting in Singapore on July 6, 2005 will decide the destination of the 2012 games.

London's mayor Ken Livingstone was keen to emphasise that under his stewardship the city has completed a number of projects on time and on budget.

If London can persuade the IOC it can deliver all the facilities it is promising than it has a potentially winning bid. The most attractive aspect it offers to the IOC over Paris is the legacy an Olympics here would offer.

The IOC, whose reputation for its overblown sense of importance is legendary, likes to leave its stamp on the city that hosts the games. Think Barcelona in 1992, Sydney in 2000 and, soon, Beijing in 2008. The games in the French capital would be a memorable experience but it would not change the face of Paris in the way it would London.

It is a prospect that Edwards revealed has got under his skin in the same way that backing Newcastle and Gateshead's bid to become the 2008 European City of Culture had done.

Of course, he did not point out that he was on the losing side on that occasion. Edwards was never beaten much during his career and he must hope he is backing a winner this time.

After yesterday it does not seem such an outrageous prospect as it perhaps once did.