London has the X-Factor

The picture on page one shows Great Britain's gold medallist rower Sir Steve Redgrave carrying the Athens Olympic torch down the Mall last June with thousands of fans cheering him on and Buckingham Palace in the background.

The regeneration of the Lower Lea Valley is a major selling point to Londoners and a major reason for Mayor Ken Livingstone's support for the bid. The thought of the Olympics leaving behind a massive legacy of sporting facilities, houses and businesses in Stratford will also win the votes of some IOC members.

But while the opening and closing ceremonies and highprofile sports are set for futuristic stadia in Stratford, it is the computer graphic images of marathon runners racing past Buckingham Palace which will grab the attention of Olympic chiefs.

These striking images will be part of both the bid book and videos to be shown to the IOC meeting in Singapore just hours before the vote.

It will be hard for London to match this year's dramatic scene of archery in the 1896 Athens Olympic stadium where the modern Games began. But the ancient sport at Lord's cricket ground comes quite close. The images of the equestrian events in Greenwich Park and triathlon in Hyde Park are also impressive. Throw in football at the new Wembley, as well as tennis at Wimbledon, and London can beat Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow for razzmatazz. But will it be enough to win the vote? On its own - no.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge believes emotion and personal preferences are likely to play a bigger role this time than ever before. Olympic votes are usually decided on 75 per cent of politics and 25 per cent of technical merit. For the rest of us, a welcoming part of London's bid is that the main Olympic complex will be a few minute's train ride from King's Cross.

That is particularly important to sports fans living north of London who will be able to reach the heart of the Olympic complex easily after arriving in the capital by train. Transport will also be a major issue for the commission of Olympic experts who will visit London in February and write a report for IOC members on the merits of the five bids.

But the reality is that the number of trains heading to Stratford won't be a huge discussion point for most IOC members. The ability of Coe to win friends and influence people in international sport and London's X-Factor will be far more important.