Watchdog descends on Paris

An Olympic anti-corruption supremo has arrived in Paris to police any lobbying by bidding cities for the 2012 Olympics at the World Athletics Championships, Standard Sport can reveal today.

Paris, London's biggest rival in the 2012 race, is said to be "pulling out all the stops" to impress International Olympic Committee members attending the event.

A senior lobbyist from the United States, who is backing New York's bid, has also been spotted at meetings of leading athletics officials in the run-up to tomorrow's start to the championships. Other cities' representatives are expected to visit the event next week, including London bid leader Barbara Cassani.

With IOC president Jacques Rogge holding a meeting of his ruling executive board in Paris today, Olympic ethics commission representative Paquerette Girard-Zappelli has travelled to France to make sure the nine cities keep to strict anticorruption rules which ban gifts to IOC members and even dinners between bidders and Olympic leaders.

The French are well aware that their bid can receive a huge boost by staging a successful championships, the most prestigious sporting event outside of the Olympics and football's World Cup.

Standard Sport understands that the organisers, who had originally been worried about cost-cutting, now take the view that money is no problem in their efforts to impress officials.

Cars and chauffeurs have been made available to athletics officials who are way down the food chain in importance.

A delegation of 10 people, including bodyguards, met Lamine Diack, the president of the world governing body of athletics, when he arrived at the airport.

Thousands of volunteers - usually students or young people who do the less glamorous jobs in the organisation of the event - were told at a meeting that "the eyes of the world" were upon them.

The French are staging the championships later than usual and will undertake a huge police operation to take the marathon past the city's famous landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower, on the final weekend in August - a busy time when Parisians usually return from their summer holidays.