Moscow Olympic bid

  Moscow is widely regarded as having only an outside chance of staging the Games. Although the city is thriving, it suffers from a lack of hotel accommodation, transport problems, including an ageing airport and questions of security. But the city and the Russian government are prepared to make major investments to secure the Olympics. Ten billion dollars would be available to transform the city's infrastructure, including a new metro system.

Many of the sports facilities are already in place and the city can boast one of the most compact proposals running alongside the Moscow river. IOC officials will meet President Putin and have a private tour of the Kremlin. Moscow is anxious to dispel memories of the 1980 Games when 65 countries boycotted the event over the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan. The American-led boycott and the subsequent retaliation by most Eastern bloc countries four years later in Los Angeles threatened the future of the Olympic movement.

The IOC inspection team's four-day visit to Moscow will result in a detailed report on all the candidate cities. The vote by all the IOC members will be taken in Singapore on July the sixth.

Vocabulary:

widely regarded as : thought by most people

an outside chance: not a very good chance

staging: holding, (being the host for an event)

thriving: doing very well with a good economy

infrastructure: basic systems and structures such as transport networks

already in place: already exist

anxious to dispel memories of: keen to make people forget about

boycotted: as a protest they withdrew and didn't compete

retaliation: revenge

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