Rio De Janeiro, July 08: Rio De Janeiro and not Sao Paulo will be Brazil's bidding city to host the 2012 summer olympics, the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) said here. Rio won the right to fight for the honour of hosting the games after Beijing holds it in 2008 following a fierce battle.
Rio is up against eight other bidding cities - Paris, London, New York, Madrid, Moscow, the German city of Leipzig, Istanbul and Havana. The International Olympic Committee will make their choice in Singapore on July 6, 2005. Rio was chosen by the COB members by 24 votes to 9, with one abstention.
"We'll provide all the financial and human resources to see that Rio's chosen," he promised.

"We've learned a lot from our losing bid in 2004. Rio is an emblematic city rich in popular culture. It has an excellent international image," he said.

Officials from both cities were present at the vote, each delegation being given an hour to make their presentation.

The winning bid was based around the use of facilities being built for the Panamerican games which Rio hosts in 2007.

Rio plans investing 3.1 billion dollars in infrastructure if it wins the race for the Olympics, with an additional 1.6 billion dollars ploughed into new sports facilities.

Sao Paolo had planned to build ten new sports centres, including an Olympic stadium at a cost of 10 billion dollars.

South America has never hosted an Olympic games.
Bureau Report.