2012 Olympics Will Be in London or Paris

Either London or the favourite Paris will host the 2012 Olympic games after Moscow, New York and Madrid were eliminated in the first three rounds of voting in Singapore.

The host city has been selected after four rounds of voting and the result will be announced at 7.46am local time (1246 BST) by the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Jacques Rogge, at the Raffles complex in the south-east Asian city.

The voting process started just after 1100 BST following final presentations from the candidate cities, and moved to a second round after no city won more than 50% of the votes.

Moscow and New York had been expected to be knocked out first but Madrid was tipped by some as a dark horse contender.

Senior members of the London leadership said they had an "outstanding" chance of success if they could remain in contention longer than Madrid, having based their strategy on courting Madrid's constituency in Latin America and Europe.

Deciding which city gets to stage the games are 115 IOC members; 99 members voted in the first round because members linked to a candidate city are not involved at that stage.

Paris has been the long-running favourite to win the games for at least the last three years but London is mounting a strong challenge to pip the French capital at the finish line.

In his final pitch, the chairman of the London bid, Lord Coe, promised a games in the UK's capital that would show "magic happens", and inspire young people around the world.

London, like Paris, hopes to become the first city to host the games for the third time and will have achieved an astonishing upset if it wins.

Craig Reedie, a British IOC member and chairman of the British Olympic Association, said: "I'm very nervous. I just don't want to be in a position where I will have to vote."