London 2012
Well it's official - the 2012 Olympic Games will be held in London.
It goes without saying that I was delighted with this decision, and to have the games in England will be fantastic. For me, it underlines one of the key things that a lot of people don't like to admit - that London is one of the biggest assets this country has, and its prestige and respected nature is frequently untapped.
For some unknown reason, of the three previous UK Olympics bids had been to host the summer games, two were for Manchester, and one for Birmingham. Unsurprisingly, these cities weren't attractive to the global membership of the IOC. But once we got a good team and our biggest city asset together, we get the games. There is a lesson to be learnt here.
Looking back at the voting patterns in today's election, it's actually quite interesting to see the way it panned out. The first round of voting is always a bit of a game of poker, as the IOC are keen to avoid any one bid being shamed by getting a horrifically low number of votes. This time round, the weakest bid was Moscow, and it's thought that there was pressure on a few supporters of London and Paris to give their first round vote to Moscow. After this though, it's a bit strange the way it transpired:
First round
London 22
Paris 21
Madrid 20
New York 19
Moscow 15
Second round
Madrid 32 +12
London 27 +5
Paris 25 +4
New York 16 -3
That's right, New York actually lost votes between the first and second round. Were there sympathy votes for New York in the first round too? It also appears that a huge chunk of the Moscow votes were from Madrid supporters.
Third round
London 39 +12
Paris 33 +8
Madrid 31 -1
As expected, the bulk of New York's voters transferred to London, and the newly eligible US IOC members seemingly voted London too. What's that about two nations divided by a common language?
What's interesting though is the loss of a vote for Madrid. Why change your mind between rounds two and three?
Fourth round
London 54 +16
Paris 50 +17
Surprisingly, Madrid's voters were split - it had been widely predicted that they would favour Paris. Reports of a deal between the London and Madrid teams to favour each other if they should go out early in an attempt to beat Paris are seemingly true.
For what it's worth, I was surprised but relieved for two reasons - firstly, of course, that London won, but secondly that Paris didn't. That might sound bizarre, but here's my reasoning. Paris' bid was technically excellent - it has the infrastructure, it has the glamour, and it has the will. However what their bid lacked was substance. Their final pitch consisted of a 45 minute film by Luc Besson which sold the traditional story of Paris: magnificent architecture, stylistic excellence, and the French joie de vivre. This of course is fine. But look at the smaller details of the bid.
Most of Paris' events were to be held in the northern parts and suburbs of the city, which are among the most deprived areas in the country. This is very similar to the London bid. However, London's plans are to regenerate the area. Build infrastructure for the area. Give these people something to aspire to. Paris plans proposed minimal regeneration. Its entire bid - much like the city itself - relied on past glories and delusions of grandeur rather than facing up to its shortcomings and doing something about them.
Had they done this, Paris would have been a worthy winner, and I would congratulate them heartliy on their victory.
As it stands though, Paris lost, London beat them - could it be much better?
Comments
Personally I have split loyalties. I am pleased the Games are in my homeland, but I cannot hide the fact that I've lived in one city for three years and have many friends there, and in the other city I have one or two distant relatives and I've spent one week there on a school trip and have travelled through a few times on coach, train and plane trips.
From experience, I can imagine ticket prices in London will be a lot more expensive than those in Paris, which was my main reason for my wanting Paris to win. Also, if I want to go to London, I'll have to pay for accomodation, the prices of which will no doubt be inflated above their already extortionate prices. Of course, the same would be true in Paris, but that's not a problem as I have people I can stay with.
Finally, I had hoped to be able to find some work translating or interpreting at the Games. If the Games were held in Paris or Madrid, I'm sure there'd have been plenty of work available (there have been calls for applications for a while on the Torino 2006 website, but I don't speak Italian). But because my native tongue is English, it will be harder to find something for the London Olympics. I'll either have to try and get something in cycling or fencing, in which the lingua franca is French and Spanish is very important, or maybe try and get some work accompanying athletes or an Olympic Association.
But at the end of the day, I would have been happy whichever of the three European cities won, as I just love sport and the chance to go and watch some of the best sport in the world for a few weeks is just fantastic. And of course I have to be delighted that my home country, England (I'm sure if the Games went to Glasgow, there wouldn't have been so many Union Jacks, but that' a different rant), will be once again hosting the Olympics. Yes, pleased for England, not for London, which already gets given everything that's decent in the UK, whether it be the national football stadium, all three tennis tournaments of any importance, too many cricket test matches etc.
Anyway, it's probably nopt appropriate to have an anti-London rant right now, so I'll stop there. Let's hope the 2012 Olympics can be the best ever so we can take that claim away from the Aussies, and let's hop we don't get Pickett's Lock the Second.
Until then we have four World Athletics Championships, two Winter Olympics, one Summer Olympics, two football World Cups, two European Football Championships and many more events to enjoy!
Posted by: Timothy Barton | 8 July 2005 at 18:16
Forgot to mention, in case anyone missed it, the first bit of good news about the London Olympics. NO BASEBALL AND SOFTBALL!!!!!!!!!!!
Now let's have some cricket to replace these dull forms of rounders.
Posted by: Timothy Barton | 8 July 2005 at 20:34
IMHO Baseball is better than cricket, especially since the bowler (pitcher) doesn't get a curved spine from playing a sport. Catching a ball flying directly at you at over 100mph is more exciting than running around a big field after a rolling ball. Cricket needs to evolve to keep me interested. Or do you want me to devolve?
Also ticket prices for the olympics in london are going to be very cheap apparently, around £3.50.
Posted by: Luke | 12 July 2005 at 15:33
Cricket is obviously a no-goer as a proper Olympic sport, as it's not played to a high level by enough countries. I was disappointed that Rugby Sevens wasn't brought in as it was one of those put up for a vote. Ah well, I suppose the IOC can only manage one good selection per meeting, and I'm glad that the main one went the right way.
The host nation is, however, allowed to bring in a demonstration sport at its own discretion. They don't get medals allocated to them, but the aim is obviously to spread knowledge. I'm not sure if one day cricket would be viable, but 20/20 certainly would be - have two or three matches one after another at a stadium on a given day. It would presumably be two groups of five - with England, Australia, NZ, WI, SA, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh qualifying automatically, with the final places up for qualification. (Or two groups of six, with four qualifying places. It's also possible I've forgotten a Test Nation.)
This would, however bring in a Big Problem - a British cricket team would be required. Never mind the years old argument about a British football team being ten Englishman + Ryan Giggs, a British cricket team would, quite simply, be the England and Wales Cricket board squad, plus a token Scotsman. That wouldn't go down well. It would also annoy me, as the talk of a UK football team has.
So it's official - the demonstration sport for the 2012 Games should be unicycle polo.
Posted by: Mike | 12 July 2005 at 20:49
Not a big enough sport? How many people live in the Indian sub-continent? There are more countries and people playing cricket at a top level than rugby, even rugby 7s. It is a much bigger and more competetive sport than many of the other Olympic discipline, and would make a far more interesting competition than baseball.
Posted by: Timothy Barton | 13 July 2005 at 21:29
Tim, you're mistaken about the numbers. IOC rules say that a sport must be played at an acceptable level by over 100 nations. This is the case for rugby, but not for cricket, which has only 92 nations.
Sources:
http://www.usarugby.org/cgi-bin/02/press/display.pl?releaseId=1016 for the rugby.
http://www.icc-cricket.com/about/ for cricket.
Either way, neither is likely to happen, so it's time to put support towards unicycle polo.
Posted by: Mike | 15 July 2005 at 18:30
But one of those member "nations" is the West Indies, which surely counts as more than one?
Posted by: Timothy Barton | 26 July 2005 at 17:12
Very good reading. Peace until next time.
WaltDe
Posted by: WaltDe | 1 September 2006 at 07:45