Madrid anxious not to dwell on vote mix-up

Madrid responded to reports that an error in the voting procedure to decide on the host city for the 2012 Olympics could have deprived them of holding the Games with a mixture of resignation and sportsmanship.

"That game has been played and is now over," Madrid mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon said.

"We accepted the rules of the vote and, of course, we accept the IOC's decision in Singapore. We don't want to look back."

A report by the BBC says that an IOC member mistakenly voted for Paris instead of Madrid in the third round of voting in Singapore on July 6, giving the French capital 33 votes compared to Madrid's 31.

A tie would have prompted a vote-off between the two cities with Madrid the favourite to win through and face London in the final round.

London then beat Paris 54-50 in the decisive vote, although it is widely believed that Madrid would have been a bigger threat to them as the votes for Paris would have moved across to their bid.

Representatives of the Madrid bid said that they had been aware of an apparent error by Greek delegate Lambis Nikolaou on the day of the vote but that their requests for a re-vote had been rejected.

Alejandro Blanco, head of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE), lamented the fact that the outcome of the bid might have hinged on a mistake by one of the voting members.

"Talking about this now is very difficult because we are dealing with a hypothesis and we can't change what actually happened," he said.

"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 behaviour of someone who didn't even have their mind on the job."

Blanco said that the confirmation of the mix-up only served to strengthen the belief of the organisers of the Madrid bid that the Spanish capital had a very real chance of winning the race to hold the 2012 Games.

"This confirms that Madrid had very great possibilities of winning the vote in Singapore and that without a doubt it was the best bid," he told Spanish news agency Europa Press.

"It had more completed installations and more popular and institutional support than any other bid.

"The important thing, though, is that this sort of thing doesn't happen again in the future."