London beat Paris by a small margin to win the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) cast their votes in Singapore on Wednesday.

The race was so tight that it went down to the fourth and last round before London pulled off its 54-50 victory over Paris.

The other three candidate cities, Moscow, New York and Madrid, were eliminated in the first three rounds successively.

The bidding process, featuring five world-class cities, had been billed as the tightest race in Olympic history.

Paris had been regarded as the favorite throughout, but London launched a strong challenge to the front-runners before taking the top sporting prize.

It was a bitter blow for Paris, which had bid for the Games for the third time in the last 20 years. London succeeded in its first attempt in that time.

London's final pitch to the 117th IOC Session seemed to have tipped the balance in favor of the UK capital as the city's bid committee made an emotive and compelling case.

During their presentation yesterday London set themselves apart from other candidate cities by focusing on the importance of getting more young people involved in sport.

"I think a lot of members used their hearts instead of their brains to vote," said IOC member Gerhard Heiberg. "It was very much an emotional thing,"

But UK Sports chief Sue Campbell told Xinhua News Agency that the concept behind the winning bid made the difference.

"The thing we are most proud of is that we were very focused on young people and children, and the future of the Olympic movement," she said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 7, 2005)