[2] Paris was seen by some as the front-runner for much of the campaign,[3] but skillful lobbying by London's supporters and an inspirational final presentation by Sebastian Coe led to the success of its bid.

The key points in the accusations were London 2012's abortive athlete incentive initiative and lobbying by then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

During the first phase, which begins immediately after the bid submission deadline, the "applicant cities" are required to answer a questionnaire covering themes of importance to a successful Games organisation.

Following a detailed study of the submitted questionnaires and ensuing reports, the IOC Executive Board selects the cities that are qualified to proceed to the next phase.

[11] The members of the Evaluation Commission then make four-day inspection visits to each of the candidate cities, where they check the proposed venues and are briefed about details of the themes covered in the candidature file.

[11] The four-day visits occurred between 3 February and 17 March 2005:[15] The Parisian bid suffered two setbacks during the inspection: a number of strikes and demonstrations coincided with the visit, and a report was released stating that Guy Drut, IOC member and one of the key members of Paris's bid team, faced charges over alleged political party financial corruption.

[15] Although these documents did not contain scores or rankings, the report for Paris was considered the most positive, followed closely by London, which had narrowed most of the gap observed at the time of the first-phase evaluation in 2004.

It was to be connected via a high-speed shuttle service, dubbed the Olympic Javelin, and existing transportation links capable of transferring 240,000 people per hour.

London was considered to be the second favourite for the election after Paris, but an inspirational and thought-provoking presentation led by Sebastian Coe, pushed the British bid irreversibly ahead of that of the French.

The Parisian bid planned for the placement of sports venues in the city's northern and western clusters, with the Olympic Village stationed in between, less than 10 minutes away from each one.

[32] The plan received a high technical score from the IOC due to the city's well-maintained transport system and plentiful accommodation, making it able to handle a large number of tourists.

[33] Although much of the infrastructure, like the Stade de France, was already in place, the plan proposed to build temporary sports venues that could be moved and reused elsewhere after the Games.

[37] During the last stages of the bidding process, IOC member Prince Albert of Monaco questioned the security of Madrid, remembering the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks which took place in the city on 11 March 2004, and killed 191 people.

[41] New York City was never seen as a front-runner, and its chances for getting the Games were hurt after Canada secured the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.

It called for every single competition to be staged in sports venues within the city limits and in clustered areas around the Moscow River, which would have made it one of the "most compact Games ever" according to the bid's head Valery Shantsev.

[43] Despite a high support from the city and national population, plus an extended hosting experience, Moscow suffered from insufficient accommodation and an old transport system which may not have been able to cope with the expected traffic during the Olympics.

In December 2003, the British prime minister Tony Blair spoke about the London bid during a "sports breakfast" he hosted during a summit in Nigeria.

"[44] Since the IOC expressly forbids any international promotion of bids before the final candidature phase, it wrote to leading British officials asking for an explanation concerning the alleged violation.

[44] The chairmen of the Commonwealth Games Federation and the British Olympic Association, and spokesmen from Downing Street and London 2012 denied any violation of the IOC's ethical code, insisting that Blair's comments were taken out of context as there was no intention to promote the bid.

[7] The undercover team secretly filmed its encounter with one of these agents, Goran Takac, who presented them to Ivan Slavkov, an IOC member and the Bulgarian Olympic Committee's president.

[47] Sebastian Coe, also a vice chairman at the time, reaffirmed Pascoe's words and assured "London 2012 has acted properly and ethically throughout the bidding process.

[7] Jacques Rogge claimed he was "an angry man because some people are not playing by the rules," underlining that "Under my leadership, I can stress there is zero tolerance for unethical behaviour".

[5][50] A controversial move by the London bid team was its initiative to offer incentive packages for participating athletes, which included free flights, food, vouchers for long-distance calling and other financial accommodations.

Immediately after announcing the initiative, London withdrew it, most likely as a result of Jacques Rogge raising concerns over its potential to start a "bidding war".

[6] Delanoë's comments were criticised by Parisian political leaders; Claude Goasguen, president of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party of the Council of Paris, stated: "One cannot make such type of accusations without delivering any proof".

"[53] By the end of 2005, Lambis Nikolaou denied Gilady's claims: "All this speculation surrounding my role in the third round of voting for the 2012 candidates is totally unfounded.

[55] Then-French President Jacques Chirac became the subject of controversy the day before the International Olympic Committee was due to pick a host city.

Not only were Chirac's comments considered unsportsmanlike where the normal etiquette is not to criticize rival cities, there were two IOC members from Finland who would vote in the final ballot.

[58] The Nigerian capital, Abuja, planned to present a bid to become the first African city to stage the Olympic Games, but ended up not filling its application.

[64] In the United States, the city of New York was picked by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) over San Francisco,[65] although several other cities submitted candidatures to become the American candidate for the 2012 Olympics; these included Houston, Washington D.C. (in cooperation with nearby Baltimore), Cincinnati, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles,[66] Seattle and Tampa[67] (in cooperation with nearby Orlando).