If it was one of the highlights of Tony Blair’s premiership, it was unquestionably the highlight of the Government’s contribution to sport in his ten years as Prime Minister.

Just before 8pm on July 6, 2005 in Singapore, Dr Jacques Rogge, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), told the world that “the Games of the 30th Olympiad have been awarded to“ and then paused as he had difficulty of opening the envelope containing the name of the winning city. He then paused, took a deep breath and announced ”London”.

As Blair said after digesting the news in faraway Gleneagles, Scotland, where he was hosting the G8 Summit: ”It’s not often in this job that you punch the air and do a little jig and embrace the person next to you.”

However, he was entitled to do so because he personally could take some of the credit for the victory by his intensive lobbying of IOC members during his two-day trip to Singapore before the vote.

Blair casts himself as EU president candidate

Speaking on French TV, Tony Blair sang the praises of the EU and sketched his agenda for its future, all in fluent French

Multimedia

• The Blair years: video, pictures and analysis

• Interactive Blair Timeline

• BlairTube

BACKGROUND

• The past decade a disaster?

• All about Iraq? Don’t you believe it

• I’ll give Blair six and a half out of ten

Multimedia

• Blair fashion gallery

• Cherie Blair picture gallery

• Brookes on Blair

That visit marked the climax of the Government’s commitment to the Games, which had begun with indifference and then gradually gathered momentum before becoming enthusiastic. There is no doubt that if the Government had been more proactive in the late 1990s, when a bid for 2012 was being considered, the desperate delay in the building of the new Wembley Stadium and the fiasco over Picketts Lock and the failure to stage the 2005 World Athletics Championships would never have occurred.

However, when the Government did finally back the bid in 2003, largely because Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, believed in the concept, it more than fulfilled its responsibilities. Jowell, a supporter of the Prime Minister, was responsible for persuading both him and the Cabinet that Britain had to bid.

From previously being sceptical towards the Games, she became a consistent advocate. Not only Blair, but also his wife embraced the idea. Cherie became an ambassador for London, working alongside sports stars and figures from the entertainment world such as Sir Elton John and Sir Mick Jagger.

The Prime Minister became particularly excited after attending the Athens Olympics, when he began meeting more of the IOC members.

His role in Singapore was bound to be limited because the G8 summit coincided with the vote. Initially, it had been thought that Paris would be able to outmanoeuvre London because the French presentation was in the morning, allowing President Jacques Chirac to speak publicly to all the IOC mnembers and still be in Gleneagles that evening.

Blair did not have the same luxury because London’s presentation was in the afternoon. Instead, it was decided, brilliantly as it turned out, to have Blair there for the previous two days where he had a series of 20-minute meetings with up to 30 IOC members, in which he emphasised the Government’s backing for the Games.

As John Coates, an Australian member of the IOC, said: ”There’s no doubt a lot of members were impressed by the opportunity to meet Blair. For any IOC members involved in that, feeling that you were part of the inner sanctum would have solidified it.”

Pat Hickey, an IOC member in Ireland, said that Blair was “absolutely superb. The four votes that were in it were definitely because he was in town. If he hadn’t come here, those votes were lost”.

It was an extraordinary tour de force, particularly for someone who then had to fly back to Britain and host an important political conference. When the Olympic flame is lit in 2012, people should remember that, without Blair’s backing, the Games would certainly have never have come to London.