Even this Aussie must concede that Great Britain has just taken gold in Olympic hosting
This is not an easy thing for an Australian to write. But it is now clear that the Brits have gone farther than merely thrashing Australia on the medals table. As awful as it is to admit, London has knocked Sydney off its pedestal as the best host of a modern Olympic Games.
London 2012 was bigger, slicker, almost as friendly, nearly as much fun, and certainly more thoughtfully planned than Sydney in terms of the legacy it will leave the host city. Having first reported on the Olympics’ impact on a host city while watching much of Seoul being bulldozed in mid-1980s, I have watched London organisers learn from the mistakes and triumphs of Sydney — which they cite as their greatest influence — to produce an even more impressive Olympiad.
One simple indication of the success of the past two weeks is the surprise among ordinary Londoners and people close to the Games that, after all those doubts, they had pulled it off so well. It is a not a sense of “We told you so”, more one of “My God, we actually did it!”. That is exactly the same feeling that was in the air on closing day in Sydney in 2000, when Australians were a little shocked to realise that we were as good as anybody in the world at playing host, and better than anyone at making the whole thing fun.
We always knew that London had the wealth and government support to make the Games happen but along with the obvious dangers posed by the weather, security threats and a creaking transport system there was a sneaking worry that the whole thing would be uptight and just a touch joyless, à la Beijing and Athens. Those fears took a hit from that unusually honest and witty opening ceremony, when Danny Boyle celebrated Britain as the free, messy, open and diverse society it is. And when the British athletes provided the home success that is needed to really set an Olympics alight, the winners gave flesh to that diversity.
Yes, there were a few too many products of private schools for comfort but alongside them were migrants and battlers, black and brown, including Jessica Ennis, the nearest that London had to Sydney’s fairytale heroine, Cathy Freeman.
Britain’s openness to people, trade and ideas also ensured that London did a better job than any other host city in using foreign talent to stage the Games. The biggest source of that talent was, ahem, Australia. Sydney veterans helped to design the stadium, run the Olympic Development Authority, staff LOCOG, organise the city’s outdoor events and manage nine of the Games venues, while even the Transport for London director handling the Olympics was another Aussie.
It seems obvious that instead of reinventing the wheel every four years host cities should bring in people who have done it before. But after Sydney set a new benchmark for excellence, Athens resisted that idea and Beijing sought advice but was never going to give key positions to foreigners. The Brits brought in Australians by the plane load and now the hosts have gained the skills and reputation to challenge them for lucrative contracts at Rio 2016 and other major events.
Foreign athletes helped out by making history, but Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps were less important than the spectators and volunteers who were the real key to London 2012. Like the people of Sydney, and unlike those in Beijing, Athens, Seoul and even Atlanta and Barcelona, the Brits were genuinely excited to attend the most obscure sports and to cheer athletes from any country.
London’s volunteers take silver, narrowly, behind Sydney’s. They had a cultural disadvantage in that Australians find it much easier to talk to strangers. But by week two everyone warmed up and police officers could be seen doing Usain Bolt poses for tourist photos.
London had the best in-stadium entertainment between events and the BBC provided the most comprehensive, intelligent broadcast coverage in Olympic history. Even the G4S security fiasco turned out to be a problem only for its shareholders; the troops drafted in were better-trained and more motivated than any contractors in the world.
Things were not perfect, of course. One problem was the sight of seats left empty by “members of the Olympic family”. The shortage of tickets was not, of itself, a disaster as it showed a voracious appetite for the Games, but it became a problem when seats were left unused. Surely there should have been a system for filling those seats at the last minute.
If we want to nitpick, London 2012 failed to keep some of the promises on the environment and public participation in sport that helped it to win the IOC vote back in 2005. David Cameron’s hype about the economic benefits is largely hot air, as were the claims that the Games would fight obesity, fix school sport, increase volunteering, create jobs in East London, give hope to a young generation and, quite literally if only briefly, bring world peace. A two-week sporting party cannot do all that.
But what London 2012 certainly can do is to leave a physical and social legacy in East London. The legacies of Seoul and Beijing were always about politics and diplomacy, while the Atlanta Games did not even try to make any lasting improvements to the city and Athens ended up with a new subway and airport but too many debts and white elephant stadiums.
The regeneration of Sydney’s Olympic park lost momentum and took several years to recover, something London is determined to avoid by opening part of its park soon after the Paralympics. Barcelona retains the gold for using the investment of the 1992 Games to transform itself, but London’s brilliant resurrection of East London tips the scale against Sydney.
When you put it all together, the fun and the legacy, the logistics and the inspiration, the result is undeniable. It is, I’m afraid to say, bronze for Barcelona, silver for Sydney, and gold for London.
Peter Wilson is the Europe correspondent of The Australian. He has reported on the Olympics in Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and London
