Posted on 07/06/2005 9:59:35 PM PDT by nwrep
AS Britain's newspapers toasted London's 2012 Olympic Games victory, The Sun roasted French President Jacques Chirac.
Read it and weep ... The Sun gets stuck into Paris and old rival France.
In a nail-biting contest in Singapore, London beat arch-rival Paris and three other cities last night to land the biggest sporting show on earth.
The Sun could not resist the chance to lash Chirac after London's win stunned Paris, including a breakout on its front page that read: "We don't mean to gloat ... but see pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 40, 41 and five pages of SunSport."
The tabloid baked the "blundering president" a humble pie and blasted Chirac's "strutting arrogance" for his "uncouth attack" on British cuisine in the run-up to the bid.
It suggested Chirac might also try "coq-up au vin, stuffed frog, hard cheese and sour grapes washed down with French 'whines'".
Other newspapers rounded on the French leader with the Daily Mail running two pages under the headline "Who's laughing now, Mr Chirac?" and branding him "staggeringly inept".
"What put a spring in the step of every red-blooded Englishman yesterday was the spectacle of France's discomfort," it said.
The tabloid ran several present and 2012 images of sites to be used in the Games.
More than 10,000 Londoners celebrated in Trafalgar Square at the announcement – sparking a party across the British capital.
London's The Daily Telegraph said "Britain is a winner on the world stage" and the Olympic victory adds to a superb spell for the country.
The broadsheet cited Britain's EU presidency and chairmanship of the G8 industrial powers at crucial junctures, the Live 8 anti-poverty concerts and British troops playing a role in Afghanistan and Iraq's fledgling democracies.
"The eyes of the world are on Great Britain. It's time to be glad. Britain is Great," it read.
London bid chief Lord Sebastian Coe was dubbed "Lord of the Rings".
The double Olympic gold medallist, 48, was hailed a gritty "never-say-die hero" for turning round London's bid when Paris seemed dead certs.
Lord Coe "may have single-handedly won London the 2012 Olympic Games with a brilliant speech to the IOC in Singapore", reported the Daily Mirror.
The Times and The Independent used an identical wraparound front-and-back-page photo of the ticker-tape Trafalgar Square celebrations.
"It is hard to exaggerate the importance to all Britain of this achievement," The Times read. London "now has a chance to buff its reputation as a world city and renew itself for the new century".
"All can, and should, find cause to rejoice in an enterprise that will be costly and also truly monumental," the newspaper's editorial said.
"London's famous victory is, quite simply, a brilliant achievement," The Guardian reported in its editorial.
The paper highlighted the upturn in fortunes for east London, at the heart of the Olympic bid.
The area is the most ethnically diverse and poorest in Europe, riven with urban blight, it reported.
East London "can at last look forward to the ambitious regeneration that it never properly got after the batterings of world war two and the collapse of old industries like the docks".
The Financial Times cheered the economic implications of London's victory.
"There is expected to be a boost for the British economy as a whole and in partucular in for construction, housing, tourism, transport, engineering, with a consequent rise in shares across these sectors."
Most newspapers published a series of maps and diagrams on the vast east London bid site.
The Independent and the Daily Express recalled expensive past flops where politicians have blown public money and warned the political elite to keep their noses out of the 2012 planning.
"Letting politicians take charge of large public projects is a recipe for disaster," the Independent warned.
"When it comes to planning the 2012 Games, our politicians – whoever is in charge – must resist the temptation to meddle."
SCREW THE FROGS!!! LOL!!!!
Ping
It's always good when the French lose.
I am so loving this - nice to have a good giggle before heading off to dreamland. The chickens are coming home to roost. Britain is a world leader, while France is irrelevant.
On Fox News earlier, I believe it was Carl Cameron, even used the word schadenfraude, as in the pleasure the Brits were getting.
Good for the Brits!
Britain's first order of business - what to do about the Yobs.
I haven't read the same story and enjoyed it over and over again so many times since November 5th, 2004!
Let 'em run Gitmo.
I think more New Yorkers are glad they DIDN'T get it than Londoners are happy they did. All the New Yorkers I know were against it and say they know of almost no one who wanted it, except Clinton, the mayor and the governor.
I'm glad to see the British press didn't wimp out on the roasting of Chirac. Rub it into his buttface!
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FRANCE SUCKS!
And who says the Hundred Years War ever ended? Sure, the fighting may have stopped for awhile...but the verbal onslaught continues. ;P
"It's always good when the French lose."
Call it tradition
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