There will be enough seats for more than 80,000 spectators in the Olympic stadium

Our capital city is in the midst of a seven year marathon, the colossal task of organising and administering the London Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012. The 60 day festival will complete our Olympic triad; we hosted in 1908 (when we stood in for Rome after an eruption of Mount Vesuvius), then 1948 (the first after World War II, and when the paralympics started as a competition for the injured soldiers) and now in 2012.

The new Olympic Village will house 17,000 athletes and officials, there will be enough seats for more than 80,000 spectators in the Olympic stadium and eight million tickets will go on sale. The event will also have its own radio station, transport links will be improved forever and there are endless organisations currently working to keep the timeline on track and to ensure that London benefits as much as possible, both socially and economically. “Legacy” and “sustainability” have become the buzz words with the focus is on creating facilities the city, and the country as a whole can continue to use for years to come. The Olympic Park Regeneration Steering Group (OPRSG) has been set up to ensure this sustainable future development, and post-event plans are already in place. The 80,000 capacity stadium will be reduced to 25,000 and used for athletics, concerts and other special events, the Olympic Park will be transformed into the largest urban park created in Europe for more than 150 years, and other structures will be downsized to secure multiple uses.
Plenty of sensationalism, uncertainty and scepticism currently surrounds the games but behind this athletes are training intensely and relentlessly, construction workers are laying the bricks and every industry is preparing for the biggest, and most exciting event of the last 100 years in England. 

Progress report
‘We can confirm that London 2012 is on the right track,’ said Commission Chairman Denis Oswald after his visit to the Olympic site in April. ‘We have been greatly impressed by the good progress that London 2012 has made since our visit last year. Seeing the transformation that has taken place in the Lower Lea Valley is nothing short of astounding, and this area will be a great legacy for the people of London and Great Britain.’ Construction is charging full steam ahead on sites up and down the country to reach the 2011 finishing line, so that the new facilities have enough time to be put through their paces. The sailing venue in Weymouth is already ready three and a half years ahead of schedule and on budget; an early tick on the colossal to do list.

Kids in sport
The Olympic bid, led by Barbara Cassani and Chairman of The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and double-Olympic champion Lord Sebastian Coe, beat Madrid, Moscow, New York and Paris because of the unique focus on a youth orientated games. Our bid promised to create a legacy of inspiration and regeneration both in and outside sport. Lord Coe insisted that 2012 would be about people, ‘Ours will be the games for everyone.’
Since that triumphant day the Youth Sport Trust has been working tirelessly to develop sport in schools further, with the Glasgow Games offering children the chance to compete in a replication of a real Olympic situation, staying in sport housing and training throughout the day. Gordon Brown has committed £6m to enable schools in the UK to host annual Olympic-themed sports days and in April this year Boris Johnson promised street athletics schemes, green gyms and mobile swimming pools to benefit Londoners, along with a new programme of discounted leisure facilities.

Getting around
Although there are plans in place for 2,500 extra car parking spaces at the Olympic site for athletes, officials, coaches and disabled spaces, most of the emphasis for this “sustainable” games has been on preparing public transport. All entrance tickets to to the games will include free public transport in the capital and 50 per cent of these will be under £20. Transport for London (TfL) has invested £10bn to deliver a transport legacy for East London, with Overground lines and the Underground network currently undergoing a massive upgrade to improve reliability and ride quality, necessary changes that will serve London for years to come. Park-and-ride schemes and ten public transport lines will feed into the Olympic Park in Stratford, with plans for a train to arrive an average of every 15 seconds. This service will provide much needed increased integration with other services and line extensions, as the annual rate of passenger journeys stands at 67 million, and will rise to 100 million by 2012. While the “Olympic Javelin” completed in 2008 and modeled on the iconic bullet trains in Japan, will offer the fastest rail travel in the UK, and travel from St Pancras to Stratford International in just seven minutes. This will allow Eurostar travelers to avoid central London and is expected to carry up to 25,000 people per hour.

Employment
By the time of the opening ceremony around 100,000 staff will be working on the games, including 3,000 staff and thousands of volunteers and construction workers. Before building began at the site construction workers demanded 100 per cent direct employment to avoid exploiting migrant agency workers, and work has been progressing seamlessly. Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, John Denham said firms competing for contracts on major London construction projects would have to sign a pledge to train and employ local people. ‘We are providing jobs and training at a difficult time for the economy,’ a spokesman for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) said. ‘Exceeding our targets on the employment of local people. We work closely with the UK Borders Agency to ensure all those working on site are legally entitled to do so. There are high levels of direct employment on the Olympic Park and we have a positive agreement with the unions representing construction workers on site which includes national wage rates.’ In addition the ODA and the LOCOG expect to award around 7,000 direct contracts worth around £6bn, creating around 75,000 business opportunities along the supply chain.

The recession
The spiralling cost of the games may be at the forefront of most people’s minds and on the front pages now, with our current budget standing at £9.3bn, but with Beijing spending around £27bn in 2008, our financial commitment so far has been realistic but wisely spent. ‘We probably would not have bid for the games if we could have foreseen the recession,’ a controversial statement from Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, and one she has since refused to comment on. Though Kevin Gosper, head of the International Olympic Committee backed her up by telling London Mayor Boris Johnson, ‘You and your team face the toughest time – short of wartime – to get the project to 2012.’ But Johnson remains positive, ‘There is never a bad time to stage a spectacular event like the Olympic and Paralympic Games and in the current economic climate I believe London is extremely fortunate to be hosting the games in 2012,’ he said. ‘They will bring the world to London, raise the city’s profile, provide a focus for a broad range of policies and hopefully encourage young people in the capital to aspire to great sporting achievement.’
There’s no doubt it’s a tough time to be spending billions of taxpayers money and it’s a huge investment with a crucial and inexorable deadline, but cynics can’t deny the games will bring a massive injection of employment before and during the games, and cash during and after. It is estimated that all of the money spent will be made back, hopefully with profit, through sponsorship, tickets, merchandise, licensing implementation and reselling land and buildings. The Beijing Olympics 2008 profited $16mn according to Jiang Xiaoyu, Executive Vice President of Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and at the Visit London AGM in 2005, Keith Mills, the Deputy Chairman of LOCOG, stated the games could be worth £2bn to London’s visitor economy. Media deals will also bring a huge cash injection – the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has already struck broadcast deals for London 2012 worth almost £2bn. By expanding its nine-partner portfolio of top-tier sponsors to about a dozen, it expects to generate at least another £600m, meaning the total broadcast and sponsorship revenue for the IOC will top £2.7bn.

Wealth of opportunity
But the games aren’t all about the money and facts and figures, for the LOCOG the main goal of the event is to ‘use the inspiration of the Olympic and Paralympic games to change lives’. And via increased employment, the Olympics Inspire programme and the unique opportunities provided, London Olympics 2012 hopes to fulfil this promise. As Dr Jacques Rogge, President of the IOC, says, ‘Each games are unique. It is not the amount of money spent that determines how good a games is, it’s also the unique and inspiring atmosphere created within the city. I’m sure London will do very well.’