Hanging chad, Olympic style?

So what's one person's vote worth these days? When you're talking about that vote deciding what city will host the Olympic games, it's getting up there (think billions of dollars). So when news surfaced Friday that a misplaced vote by an Olympic official may have cost London the 2012 Summer Games, the Brits have reason to chirp.

Alex Gilady said Friday a fellow International Olympic Committee member mistakenly voted for Paris rather than Madrid in July for the right to host the games. The amusing part is that nobody on the committee seems to know how the miscast vote would have affected the outcome of the vote. Or at least, nobody is fessing up.

"This is an assumption but a very serious assumption," Gilady said told The Associated Press.

The delegate is question is believed to be Lambis Nikolaou, president of the Greek Olympic Committee. He complained after the third round of voting he did not have time to register his choice, but his objection was dismissed and it was shown all votes had been cast. His secretary, who did not want to be identified, told the AP on Friday that Nikolaou was aware of the report but did not wish to comment.

Oddly enough, these people rehearsed the vote before casting the vote...and still botched it up! Even more odd is the fact that the vote in question may have come from a delegate of the country that hosted the last Summer games. Not sure if there's any relevance to that fact, but it just seems to make everything seem just a little bit fishy.

"We don't comment on IOC members' voting intentions and it is irrelevant," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said.

Irrelevant! Rhythmic dance is irrelevant. Synchronized swimming is irrelevant. Getting a host vote right is a tad more relevant that these incompetents seem to think. But then again, the Olympics wouldn't be the Olympics without a little controversy.