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Starting gun to sound for London 2012
Evening Standard 7 Jul 2008
London becomes the next Olympic host city in a matter of weeks when Boris Johnson is handed the Olympic flag from his Beijing counterpart at the closing ceremony of the summer Games.
Games organisers are hoping optimism about the 2012 project will surge across the nation rivalling the heady atmosphere of the triumphant bid win three years earlier.
A strong showing by British athletes, tipped to win 12 golds in Beijing, should ensure that the four-year run-in to the 30th Games of the modern Olympiad begins on a high.
Attention will then quickly shift to progress on the 500-acre Olympic Park in Stratford where the multi-billion pound construction of new venues including a stadium, aquatics centre, athletes' village and velodrome, moves up a gear next year.
By 2010 it will be Europe's biggest building site, employing around 20,000 workers creating a world-class sports venue and a new City centre for Stratford against a fixed deadline.
Already Games organisers have coped with the fallout from their controversial choice of logo. Potential pitfalls lie ahead in anything from their choice of Games mascot to the cost and availability of tickets.
Next year the first venues will begin to appear from the once desolate industrial landscape of the Lower Lea Valley.
By 2011 the work of Olympic Delivery Authority will - if all goes to plan - be largely done as they begin to hand over the venues for testing.
In the year preceding the Games, London will be magnet for major championships in anything from taekwondo to table tennis.
Delegations from the 200 or so participating nations will make frequent trips to the UK to pick a training camp or see for themselves if the venues come up to scratch.
The coming months will also mark the start of unprecedented scrutiny as Parliament and the Greater London Authority step up their interest - not least in Games chiefs' pledges that the budget - the most controversial aspect of the Games - does not exceed £9.3bn.
Public interest in the Millennium Dome and Wembley is likely to seem nothing as compared to the London Olympics.
But the biggest test of success will not come until after the Olympic circus has moved on. Only then will it become apparent whether the London Games has succeeded where so many white-elephant generating Games have failed - by creating a lasting legacy.
To believe right now that it can be done is a triumph of hope over experience.
