There is an Indian hand in the successful bid and holding of the London Olympics beginning today.
As the unprecedented third Olympics in London gets underway, NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul looks back with great satisfaction to his role in the successful bid for the Games and thereafter as the Chairman of the key Olympic Delivery Committee (ODC) tasked with acquisition of land running into hundreds of acres.
Seven years ago when the venue of the 2012 Olympics was to be decided, Paul was among the eminent Britons led by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair who went to Singapore to persuade the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allot the Games to London, which has been the venue twice before in 1908 and 1948.
"The competition was intense. Paris appeared certain to get it. The French President was there. The US was bidding as was Russia. But we did it," he recalls.