The final straight

London's Olympic Stadium?

Today London, Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow round the final bend with hopefully our fair capital if not in the lead, then at least with a Dame Kelly Holmes finish in her. Today the IOC delivered their final appraisal of the bids for the 2012 Olympics before the voting and results in Singapore on July 6th.

Despite all my enthusiasm for the attempt I have to admit I was rather concerned that we were going to screw up when Barbara Cassani 'stepped down' but it appears the bid team have done themselves and the Big Smoke proud. Here we are: neck and neck on merit with Paris with a technically excellent submission and all we need now is three things:

One, we ship all the unpatriotic Londoners, bitter Brummies and moaning Mancunians off to France. For once and for all, the IOC have already said they wouldn't even consider a UK city other than London. The Midlands may be the heart of the country geographically but I'll take London's cultural, historical and emotional heart any day. I'm also sick of the tired argument that we could just spend the money on the NHS or something equally laudable. Using that logic though we'd never do anything to bring pride, inspiration and growth to the country.

Two, hopefully the IOC voters will want a bid that brings redevelopment and a lasting legacy, not that simply slots in to 15 year old stadiums. True, London has more to do than Paris and Athens very nearly cocked it up big time last year but so many of the plans coincide with what we're doing on the Channel Tunnel rail link and other projects. Besides the UK's not very good at capital projects (no pun intended) so it's a good excuse for us too.

Three, we have to avoid tripping and falling at the final hurdle. Please no strikes, wars or other such PR disasters. Our level of public support is depressingly British. While we can't do anything about Paris having bid recently or having a stadium or two up its sleave it'd be a shame to lose the greatest show on earth just because we couldn't be bothered or see beyond the end of our street.

You watch, Moscow will end up getting it now...