Russia unveils its bid for the 2012 Olympics Games

• Report rights infringement
• published: 21 Jul 2015
• views: 14

RUS OLYMPICS 160104N 1. Interior of Luzhniki press centre, start of news conference 2. Press and Olympic officials 3. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Valery Shantsev, Deputy Moscow mayor and Head of the Moscow bidding committee: "Nineteen-twelve (the year 1912) was the first time that a Russian team - consisting of 178 athletes - participated in the Olympic Games, held at the time in Stockholm. Twenty-twelve (2012) will be the 100th anniversary of our Olympic history." 4. Press 5. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Valery Shantsev, Deputy Moscow mayor and Head of the Moscow bidding committee: "In Moscow, we have everything we need to guarantee that our bid wins, the most important and convincing factor of the project being that the Moscow Olympic Games will be held in one city." 6. Interior of conference room 7. Close shot, olympic program and Moscow slogan 8. SOUNDBITE (English) Vitaly Smirnov, Vice President of the International Olympic Committee: "So many cities in the world which can stage the Olympic Games, but the problem for the organising and bidding committees is how they could convince those members that exactly this city could stage the Olympic Games. So we have many examples when the team which was bidding for the games were excellent and they got the rights. I would mention first of all people from Atlanta, that was a great team, presided by the chairman and the mayor of the city. So first of all it depends of the committee that is presided by (Moscow) Mayor (Yuri) Luzhkov." 9. Interior Luzhniki sports stadium 10. Pull out from exterior of Luzhniki sports stadium STORYLINE: Moscow announced the official submission of it's bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games at a news conference in Moscow on Friday. Chaired by deputy-mayor of Moscow Valery Shantsev, the Moscow Olympic committee was confident that the city's past ability to host major sports meetings was a contributing advantage to sealing Moscow's success. Unveiling their bid on Friday, city and sporting officials claimed that the Russian capital's rich experience of hosting international sporting events coupled with the overwhelmingly positive attitude of it's population are Moscow's greatest assets. Moscow, vying to host only its second ever Olympic Games, is one of nine applicant cities, though it is considered an underdog in comparison with favorites such as Paris, London, Madrid and New York. Compared to the fanfare accompanying the submission of bid documents in some cities, the Moscow event was a low key presentation of the documents sent to the International Olympic Committee. The overall concept of the city's bid is "the Olympic River," referring to the Moscow River which historically is the main artery of this 12th century city. The sporting and housing facilities proposed for the Games would be located along this waterway. Moscow plans to revamp several stadiums to Olympic standards as well as build an Olympic Village of cottages to host the athletes. Security concerns, linked to the possibility of more terrorist attacks like those that already plague Moscow, were played down. Moscow has been the target of suicide bomb attacks linked to the ongoing war in Chechnya, now in its fifth year. Last summer, two women blew themselves up at a large outdoor concert in the capital, killing 15 people. In October 2002, Chechen rebels seized hostages at a Moscow theatre, a raid that ended with the deaths of 129 hostages. Hosting the 2012 Games would be particularly symbolic for Russia, which made its first official appearance in the Olympics a century earlier in Stockholm. In May, the IOC executive board will decide whether to accept all nine nations as official bid cities or trim the field to around half a dozen. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/783850704c177bc8643abe5f8bcb395b Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork