Moroccan woman to head panel on 2012 bid cities

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- Former Olympic gold medalist Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco will head the panel evaluating the five cities bidding for the 2012 Summer Games.

El Moutawakel, the 400-meter hurdles champion at the 1984 Los Angeles Games and an IOC member since 1998, will chair the 12-person evaluation commission for the 2012 Games. She has also been a member of track and field's governing council since 1995.

"As a former Olympic champion she has a great knowledge of the Olympic Games and what it takes to organize them," IOC president Jacques Rogge said in a statement Tuesday.

El Moutawakel was the first woman from a Muslim nation to win an Olympic medal and the first Moroccan athlete to win gold.

In May, the IOC selected London, Madrid, Moscow, New York and Paris as the 2012 finalists from an initial list of nine cities. The complete bid files must be submitted to the IOC by Nov. 15.

The panel will visit each of the five cities and compile a report assessing their technical bids. The report will be issued a month before the IOC selects the host city at its session in Singapore on July 6, 2005.

The evaluation reports have taken on added significance since the IOC banned members from visiting bid cities following the Salt Lake City scandal.

The panel includes five other IOC members -- Els van Breda Vriesman of the Netherlands, Canada's Paul Henderson, Mustapha Larfaoui of Algeria, Singapore's Ser Miang NG and Sam Ramsamy of South Africa.

The commission also includes national Olympic officials Jose Luis Marco of Argentina and Patrick Jarvis of Canada, and outside experts Simon Balderstone, Philippe Bovy and Bob Elphinston.