By a quirk of fate, the city has staged the games twice at times of austerity (as well as in 1908).

ECONOMIST: Echoes and lessons of London��s previous Olympic games

By a quirk of historical fate, it was another Frenchman, Joseph Bonaparte, ruler over Madrid in the early 19th Century, who bequeathed to the city several of its more iconic plazas.

BBC: Madrid��s public squares