updated 12:26 p.m. ET Dec. 28, 2005

ATHENS, Greece - An IOC vice president denied casting a ballot that might have helped London win the 2012 Olympics.

“All this speculation surrounding my role in the third round ... is totally unfounded,” Lambis Nikolaou of Greece said in a statement Wednesday. “I state that I did not vote in the third round, as I had announced at the time of the vote.”

Senior Olympic official Alex Gilady said last week that Nikolaou mistakenly voted for Paris rather than Madrid during balloting July 6 in Singapore — tipping the balance toward London.

Gilady, an Israeli and member of the London 2012 Coordination Commission, described his claim as a “very serious assumption.”

Paris received 33 votes to Madrid’s 31 in the third round, eliminating the Spanish capital. Had Madrid received the vote, Gilady argued, the cities would have tied with 32 each, seven fewer than London, and entered a tiebreaker.

London beat Paris 54-50 in the final round. Moscow and New York were eliminated in the first two rounds of voting for the Summer Games.

On Tuesday, an IOC statement said one of its 104 voting members did not cast a third-round ballot in Singapore.

“Even if the 104th vote had been cast it is mathematically impossible that it could have changed the outcome of the third round of voting,” the statement said.

MORE FROM OTHER SPORTS

Other sports Section Front

The most important black athlete in existence the Grio: 100 black history-makers in the making   Andrews stalker had 16 other victims, feds say 17 years later, Jones and Hopkins to fight again Roddick’s wife on cover of SI swimsuit issue   Video: SI's swimsuit issue is big business Pac-10 giving ‘serious evaluation’ to expansion Riley, Conradt on Hall of Fame Board of Governors Globetrotters play game on ice rink in New York Afghanistan hopes to defeat America - in cricket Other sports Section Front   Add Other sports headlines to your news reader: