Grayling Blog

Two years today until the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games

Posted on 8.09.2010 by Unknown User

So two years from now, it will all be over – the Games at least. The athletes, media, visitors and sponsors will all have left East London, and the focus will shift to the legacy of London’s Games. Can London deliver where Athens and Beijing (albeit less spectacularly) failed, namely by delivering true, sustainable regeneration and a lasting positive impact on its residents? The days are long gone when an Olympics was judged solely on the Games themselves and the impact of what many media branded the ‘worst games ever’ in Vancouver this year is still being felt.

After a few false starts, the latest signs are at least promising. London’s Games are on schedule and currently under budget (by comparison witness the heated exchanges and corruption accusations coming out of New Delhi this summer...), and (despite the rather horrific concept of West Ham moving into an 80,000-seater stadium), the legacy programme seems to be coming together. It was the promise of the lasting legacy to London, remember, that was cited as a key reason for London winning out over Paris.

I know it’s impossible to divorce a major global sporting event from politics these days (just look at FIFA’s shameless treatment of Nelson Mandela in South Africa this year...), but for the next 200 words or so, I will at least try. The London Games will be the largest sporting event on UK shores since football’s European Championships rowed ashore in 1996. Despite early scepticism, and the obligatory home defeat to Germany, that event turned out to be a superb platform for the UK’s global image and self-confidence, coming on the back of a decade blighted by the darker side of sport.

The sheer scale of a modern Olympics will dwarf anything London has ever seen. Our great city, surely the most cosmopolitan and varied on earth, deserves the honour of staging these Games. It really is that simple – or at least it should be. Yes the legacy is important – it would be immoral to spend these sums without ensuring massive improvements for decades to come – but let’s not forget the lift that the Games will give London as it shines under the world’s spotlight for three weeks or so two summers from now.

The sheer drive and dedication of modern Olympians - and the fact that most are as far from the riches of the modern –day footballer or celebrity as any of us – always guarantees them a special place in our hearts, win or lose. Imagine training solidly for four years for your big day....they deserve our praise simply for turning up, I reckon. And turn up they will, in droves....in Beijing, representatives from 204 countries or territories competed; a figure that makes FIFA’s ‘greatest show on earth’ claim for the World Cup sound somewhat ridiculous. Athletes and fans from over 200 countries descending on London for the greatest party on earth – the greatest opportunity yet for sport to continue its incredible record of healing and re-energising us all. Sport, and especially the Olympics, transcends borders, cultures and political and other differences. It unifies and binds us all together – and that can only be a good thing, wherever you are in the world.

We all want to see East London transformed, especially those living there I am sure. But let’s promise to enjoy the Games as well – the athletes deserve that, even if one could argue that the IOC do not.