Caborn eases Olympic fears

The Prime Minister has been "burned" by failed bids

The British Government has dismissed rumours Prime Minister Tony Blair will reject London's bid to stage the 2012 Olympics.

A newspaper report said the predicted cost of putting forward the bid had turned Blair against the proposal.

But on Sunday, sports minister Richard Caborn told BBC Radio Five Live he would push for London's Olympic bid.

Caborn said: "I have had only the briefest discussions with the Prime Minister.

"We learned a lot from the bid for the 2006 World Cup and what we have to do is make sure we don't make the same mistakes.

"It would be easy to say 'let's not go for it' but this Government is not like that.

"We shall find out what the cost is, and we believe we have a bank of information from which we can draw a very objective decision."

I shall put forward a very strong case for sport, but it will not be judged just on sport

Sports minister Richard Caborn

His sentiments were backed by British Olympic Association chief executive Simon Clegg who revealed Mr Blair still felt "burned" by the failed 2006 World Cup bid.

Hosting the Games is expected to cost as much as £5.4bn, which Caborn revealed might eventually put an end to any bid.

But he added: "I have to make the case for sport and there is a very strong case for sport. All the kids we are investing in through sport could well be the medallists of 2012.

"I shall put forward a very strong case for sport, but it will not be judged just on sport, it is about the cost of this project and the real value.

"What we are now going through is an appraisal of going into a bidding process and we shall do that up until the end of January when the cabinet will meet to make a final decision.

"We have to look at the cost but also then find out what the value is. That can be somewhat more difficult to quantify than the cost and we are in that process now."

Parisian backing

The Observer newspaper had earlier listed details of a survey carried out by John Scott, head of major events at UK Sport, on how likely Britain would be to win if a bid was submitted.

He concluded that Paris was the favourite to win out of the 12 cities interested.

This was apparently because of its superior transport links and its success in staging events such as the 1998 football World Cup.

Senior ministers are due to debate the issue on 30 January.

Ministers will have to endorse the bid and commit around £250m to it before it can go ahead.