Ploughing on: A shortage of snow has been one of the problems the organisers of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver have had to overcome Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES
If there was a message from the Vancouver Olympic Games organising committee chairman John Furlong to his London brethren who are here as observers, it is to expect the unexpected. It could also be, don’t make anything too complicated. Sometimes the obvious is the most simple.
“We are capable of delivering an Olympic Games,’’ deadpanned Locog chairman Lord Sebastian Coe, when his video presentation to the IOC members suffered a glitch on Thursday. The London Games have been praised for their plans so far, which he attributed to “the quality of work going on 24/7.”
At the Vancouver Winter Olympics there has been not only no snow for one of the local venues, Cypress Mountain, but the unseasonally warm nights have prevented any of the 35 contingency snow machines from kicking into action.
London 2012 won’t have those particular problems, but there will be other challenges.Security, moving millions around the Tube, train and buses, and ensuring that the British are fully connected to the Games. And on that last point Furlong stressed how important it is to use them for social benefit. Furlong said he tried to use them to bring all of Canada together. Sustainability was their buzz word, Legacy is London’s. Vancouver uses the slogan ‘The Best of Us’. London will use the mantra ‘Personal Best’.
Furlong said: “These are Canada’s games and a rallying point for the whole country.’’
To ensure all Canadians felt involved, particularly local businesses, organisers conducted more than 5,000 community consultations. Local disaffected women – former sex workers and victims of violence – have been employed putting together the floral tributes to the medal winners, while the
down-and-outs have been hired in the local fabrication plant.
Locog chief executive Paul Deighton said getting in touch with the rest of the country was one of five key points for the coming year. The others were focusing on the venues, working with their partners to ensure a co-ordinated delivery, the Paralympics and the budget. Locog will spend about £700 million next year.
“At the moment five million people are being inspired, benefiting and delivery parts of the London Olympic Games,’’ Lord Coe said.
The Canadians also drew upon a nationalistic fervour to try and present the country in the best possible light to its international visitors.
Traditional Olympic price gouging has been bought under some control: hotels for instance capped their price rise to 15.8 per cent from the previous 12 months.
One of the key lessons, says IOC President Jacques Rogge, is for the London team to focus on operational readiness.
“The venues are totally different,’’ said Rogge, but it will be interesting for London to see how the Canadians prepare their venues and how the operational aspects take precedence.’’
Coe said the next few weeks were an important step for the London preparations: “We will have the opportunity to validate our current thinking, revisit our assumptions and develop our own detailed planning around the London city organisation.”
To that end, London has key Metropolitan Police embedded with the Canadian security forces, and Locog has officials working in all areas of operations and issues management here. The Canadians have also shown London how the international media can interpret local issues in different ways to the locals.
So far the Vancouver Olympics has a global image of no snow, yet the five other venues, including the snow-critical alpine events at Whistler, are blanketed in the white stuff.
A three-storey high flag of the Australian team’s informal mascot, the Boxing Kangaroo, battling the tight marketing rules of the IOC has been a early news story of the Games. Certainly none of the organisers expected that the issues of poverty in Vancouver’s East side would rank as high internationally alongside media complaints about the hefty prices of internet access (£340 each).
But Furlong said in a timely warning to London: "There is no perfection when you turn on a system this large’’.
Meanwhile London organisers have abandoned a bold plan to have just one torch that was to be passed through 7,000 torch runners because of security fears that it would be too tempting a protest target.
Source:telegraph.co.uk/
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