New York mayor gets head start on Livingstone

New York's Olympic bid upstaged London in the first key meeting of the 2012 lobbying campaign with the city's mayor Michael Bloomberg making a real impact in the absence of Ken Livingstone.

London 2012 officials said today that Livingstone was unable to find time in his diary for the meeting of European Olympic leaders in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik at the end of last week.

But three of the five bidding cities flew in their mayors to promote their bids with Bertrand Delanoe of Paris and Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon of Madrid joining Bloomberg on the Adriatic coast. Moscow sent its deputy mayor, Valery Shantsev, to the conference which was also attended by International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge.

It emerged today that Bloomberg won many friends by taking the trouble to sit through several hours of the general assembly of the European Olympic Committees in addition to giving a presentation of New York's bid on Friday.

Many Olympic leaders were impressed that such a high-profile political figure had taken the trouble to listen to their deliberations.

The meeting was the first occasion when the five bidding cities were allowed to make presentations to Olympic leaders since the bid books detailing their plans were handed into the IOC last month. It marked the kick-off of the international lobbying campaign in the run-up to next July's vote.