LONDON, (Reuters) – Organisers of the 2012 Olympics will be hoping to emulate the street-party atmosphere of Vancouver now that the curtain has come down on the Winter Games and all eyes turn to London.
London organisers have always promised a “compact and atmospheric” Summer Games, largely as an antidote to the glitz of Beijing which is estimated to have spent 40 billion pounds ($59.58 billion) on staging the 2008 Olympics.
London also pledged it would provide efficiency, with the added commitment of delivering a legacy which would avoid the white elephants of some previous Games such as Athens.
It has been efficient with its 9.3-billion-pound budget — rather in the vein of 1948, the last time London staged the Olympics, when economic hardship resulted in the so-called austerity Games.
The current economic downturn has again forced belt-tightening, with some planned new, temporary sites, such as the fencing and badminton arenas, being scrapped in favour of existing ones.
Regeneration of a once deprived part of east London is under way, with improved transport links, new housing and the prospect of high-tech businesses moving in to what will become Britain’s largest urban park for more than 100 years.
“Each Olympics is distinctive for different reasons, and I think that despite the amount of money being spent on London, there is a return to normality, looking for value for money and making sure there is a tangible legacy,” Simon Chadwick, professor of sport business strategy and marketing at Coventry University Business School, told Reuters.
SECURITY BUDGET
Any hopes that London would be “a back to reality” Games may be exaggerated partly because London has a global reputation it cannot afford to jeopardise, but mainly because the Olympics have become so commercial.
London is “on budget and on time”, according to organisers, but the cost is about three times the original estimate. The economic downturn scuppered its private and public partnership plans for two of the park’s biggest projects, the Olympic Village and media centre, forcing the taxpayer to step in.
Experts say the security budget of 600 million pounds, the same as Vancouver, is hopelessly optimistic given that Britain will be a much bigger target for potential attackers after its support of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Other financial risks lie ahead, including a potential shortfall in the estimated sales revenue of the Olympic Village after the Games.
