A French city has launched a 20m euro (£17m) bid to encourage 2012 athletes to train in France rather than at English facilities such as Battersea Park’s Millennium Arena.

Calais hopes to attract international athletes with training facilities including a bike-racing velodrome, gymnastic centre and wrestling hall.

The city, which is one hour from London by Eurostar, has a similar climate.

Calais council leader Dominique Dupilet said: "We are so close that we consider ourselves the English region that the British might forget about and athletes from Egypt and Senegal have already signed up to train here.

"We've had the Union Jack flag in our offices from the moment they made the announcement that London had won.

"We are British because we are just 20km (12.4 miles) away from England as the crow flies. And the English occupied us for hundreds of years."

Councils in London, which hope to attract athletes and tourists in the run-up to the 2012 Games, were not convinced.

Wandsworth councillor Sarah McDermott said she hoped athletes would use its own Millennium Arena athletics facility in Battersea Park.

She said: "We've got easy access to the Olympic site and obviously, unlike Calais, we don't have to shuttle people across water to get here."

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