London’s Olympic 2012 Scramble

British Olympic legend Sebastian Coe didn’t face any hurdles when he was winning gold in 1980 and 1984. He was a distance runner. But as chairman of London 2012, he faces a big one: The economy.

Steering the city’s summer games got a lot more daunting in the midst of a global financial crisis. Coe’s organization has so far sold 500 million pounds in corporate sponsorships en route to a goal of 700 million pounds (just over $1 billion U.S.). The games will cost an estimated 2 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) overall.

That means putting less effort into selling and more into bartering–the Olympic business lingo is “value in kind”–in trying to trim the cash requirements for the event.

London Olympic Bidders Have Response for Recession

Cities from around the world have descended on Colorado to bid on being the next host of the Olympic Games, but the bid comes with new challenges.

In 2004, Olympic organizers for London were thrilled to learn the city would host the 2012 Summer Games. But they couldn’t predict that five years later, the cost of the games would triple.

Not long after Beijing hosted the world for two weeks in August, the cost of future Olympic games skyrocketed while the global economy tumbled.

A good part of private funding for London’s Olympic Games has vanished during the credit squeeze. One of the major corporate sponsors for the London games has also declared bankruptcy.

London Will Do Everything To Attract Olympics Tourists

London Will Do Everything To Attract Olympics Tourists Tourism agencies will do all they can to attract visitors to London during the olympic Games in 2012, a travel expert believes.

Branding is an element which needs to be considered, according to Jerome Touze, co-founder of Where Are You Now?, a social networking website focused on travel and lifestyle.

He suggests that making use of social media to generate publicity and engage the public is one way of running a campaign.

Mr Touze adds: “The tourism boards like VisitBritain will do everything they can to make sure Britain is at the forefront of tourism to the other nations.”

According to a survey conducted by Where Are You Now? which investigated the potential tourism to be generated by the London Olympics, 38 per cent of people said high costs will be the main factor that will deter people from visiting London during the Olympics.

Just over half of respondents indicated a belief that London will do a good job of keeping them informed about plans and progress of staging the sporting event.

London’s Olympic Stadium Begins to Take Shape

People in construction jobs are helping London’s 2012 Olympic Stadium to take shape.

Developers are hoping that the Games’ showpiece will be completed in summer 2011, which will allow for a year of test events before the Olympics commence in 2012.

Referring to the stadium’s progress, an article in the newspaper said: “Its foundation is nearing completion, with more than 3,500 of the 4,000 permanent piles installed.

“It will contain 10,000 tons of steel – the lightest Olympic stadium to date.”

Over 800,000 tons of earth were removed from the site to allow for the stadium’s platform to be constructed.

The platform will eventually be able to hold 25,000 permanent seats and 55,000 temporary ones, which will form part of a lightweight steel upper tier.

The 2012 Olympic Stadium is being built at Marshgate Lane in Stratford. Once the Games have finished, it will be used as a new athletics venue.

Second Class London Games

A survey by online company WAYN.com (Where Are You Now?), of thousands of travellers, indicates there are widespread negative attitudes about the London 2012 Games, with potential visitors worried about terrorism and prices.

According to the poll, of the 7,500 travellers surveyed, 22 per cent had previously visited a city which has hosted the Olympics and only four per cent said the London Games would be better than other summer Olympics, with 29 per cent saying the 2012 Games would be worse.

But the survey showed that the Games would still be a major tourist attraction for London, with only 16 per cent saying they would be less likely to visit the city during the Olympics and 47 per cent saying they were more likely to come.

The survey also showed that 59 per cent say that despite the high cost of bringing the Games to London the potential benefits justify the expense, and 62 per cent believe London will provide a better visit experience for the Games than Paris, which lost the Games to London.

WAYN co-founder Jerome Touze said, “clearly there is a huge amount of interest in London’s Olympic Games and the event does have the potential to be the biggest visitor attraction ever. However, if that potential is going to be converted into serious visitor numbers, London urgently needs to address the negative perceptions and key concerns highlighted by our survey”.

He added, “it may be that attitudes have been tainted by reports about costs and cutbacks, but the risks associated with London 2012 being considered a second-class event should not be taken lightly. Meanwhile there also needs to be reassurances about containing the threat of terrorism and about containing costs, and last but not least, a major charm offensive to show the friendly face of London”.

Young ambassadors for London Olympics

ALSAGER School pupils are to play a major role in raising awareness of the 2012 Olympics.

A number of Year 11 pupils have been chosen to become Sporting Ambassadors.

Their role will be to promote a wide range of sports and raise awareness of the 2012 London Olympic Games and Paralympics.

Leading ambassador Emily Pumford has already attended a conference at Lancashire County cricket ground.

She learned about the key role of the ambassadors, that of spreading good news about the benefits of sport throughout their communities.

Emily has been joined as a Young Ambassador for Sport by Jack Sherratt, Caroline Edgely, Courtney Fumerola, Zoe Young, Eve Griffiths and Ami Priestman.

They have the responsibility of being top sporting role models among primary schools in Alsager and the surrounding area.

They will be promoting the key ideals of respect, friendship and excellence through a wide variety of sporting activities over the next few years.

“I am amazed by the passion and dedication young people are prepared to devote to helping others get involved in sport,” said Alsager School sport co-ordinator Steph Moore.

“I am proud to be associated with these pupils, and with this initiative.

“Pupils like this make my job even more enjoyable.”

London 2012 Olympic Village developer Lend Lease to ask for more time to raise funds

Australian firm Lend Lease have been trying to raise £1billion in private finance for more than a year, and the lock-down agreement with the Olympic Delivery Authority that gives them exclusive rights to the project is due to expire in the new year.

Telegraph Sport understands that Lend Lease are likely to invoke an option to extend that period to next March in the hope that they may yet secure a deal. The move comes with the Qatari development agency expressing an interest in stepping in should Lend Lease withdraw, and at least one UK-based property developer are also understood to be considering expressing interest.

The ODA have denied that they are in active talks with the Qataris.

Lend Lease agreed to put £1billion of equity and private finance into the village but the banking crisis has severely impacted on their ability to meet their commitment. The Government are resigned to contributing up to £400million of contingency funding to the project and have already forwarded £95million to Lend Lease to enable work to continue.

The ODA are hopeful that negotiations with a new partner for the social housing element of the 2,800-apartment development will ease the financial pressure on Lend Lease and enable them to remain involved.

Two housing associations are already committed to the project, East Thames Housing Group and First Base, but the ODA are in talks with a third, the Southern Housing Group, aimed at spreading the financial risk.

If the three agencies are able to put up significant funding towards the one-third of apartments that will be affordable or social housing, it will significantly improve Lend Lease’s chances of persuading their banks to deliver finance.

A deal on the village is crucial to the project’s chances of staying within the £9.3billion budget set by the Government.

Warning No More Public Money is Available for London Olympic 2012

About 100 million pounds (C$186.4 million) is being spent every month on construction for the 2012 London Olympics despite the economic downturn.

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell said Wednesday that about 64 per cent of the 9.325 billion-pound (C$17.4 billion) budget for the Games will come from the government and 11 per cent from London taxpayers. She said there will be no more public money available, whatever happens.

“There is no more money and, as I have said before, we are on time and on budget,” Jowell said. “The budget is identified and remains the same now as it did when I made the revised budget.”

Jowell said that hosting the Olympics is still be a positive thing for London despite the huge cost and funding difficulties during the global financial crisis.

“The Olympics is essentially economic gold at a time of economic need,” she said. “A shot in the arm for investment.”

Jowell Denies Olympic Win Regrets

Olympics minister Tessa Jowell has denied regrets over London’s successful bid to host the 2012 Olympics Games.

It has emerged that earlier this week she told leisure chiefs “had we known what we know now” about the economy “we would almost certainly not” have bid.

But she insisted to the BBC that she had meant people may have seen a bid for the games as a “distraction”.

She said thousands of UK jobs generated from the games could be “economic gold at a time of economic need”.

Ms Jowell’s comments to leisure industry bosses on Tuesday evening were revealed in Thursday’s Telegraph.

‘Austerity Games’

Speaking at the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London, Ms Jowell defended her comments.

She told the BBC: “The important thing is to understand the whole of what I’ve said, not a little bit of it which has been taken out.

“What I was reflecting was that had we known the economy was going to turn down, the perception of some people might have been that the Olympics would be a distraction or not a solution to this central problem.”
The Olympics minister spoke of the economic regeneration in Stratford, saying that the creation of 3,000 jobs on the site, an overall £6bn injection into the economy was “exactly what the economy needs now and it wouldn’t have happened without the Olympic Games”.

The last time that the games were held in London, in 1948, they were nicknamed the “austerity games” for the frugal nature of the facilities as the UK faced an economic crisis as it struggled to recover from the war.

Ms Jowell rejected the comparison on BBC Radio Four’s World at One programme, saying that “these are not austerity games”.

She added: “They are games that are being run and delivered within a very clearly defined public sector budget.”

The original Olympics budget of £2.4bn rose to £9.35bn last year.

Labour MP Graham Stringer, who never thought the Games should come to London, wants a return to the original budget as “we’re living in times of austerity”.

The Manchester MP told BBC Radio 4 that existing facilities should be used to create the savings needed to do this, such as hosting cycling events in Manchester’s velodrome, housing the Olympic stadium at Wembley and basing equestrian events at Hickstead.

‘Fortunate’

Mayor of London Boris Johnson, responding to Ms Jowell’s comments, told the BBC that, if he had known of the current recession at the time of the 2005 bid, he would still have supported it.

He said: “There is never a bad time to stage a spectacular event like the Olympics and Paralympic Games, and, in the current economic climate, I believe London is extremely fortunate to be hosting the games.

“The case for the games – if anything – is stronger in difficult times, and I believe that the development under way in the East End will prove a vital shot in the arm for the city when it needs it most.”

Asked later about suggestions that foreign investors, such as China, could be asked to help the project in some way, amid concerns about the crisis in the UK construction sector, Mr Johnson said he and government ministers were talking to “many people” about ways they could contribute to the Games’ success.

“I would like to see anybody involved who is going to bring in investment to that part of London,” he told Channel 4 News.

Meanwhile, Labour MP Frank Field said it was vital ministers squeezed every last penny out of Olympic contractors to make sure they were not “taken to the cleaners”.

He added: “We must make the best of this and we must protect more of these jobs for British workers.”

Financial Crisis Dampens London’s Olympic Plans

Organizers of the 2012 Summer Games are looking for ways to scrimp amid the worldwide credit crunch, tumbling domestic property values and rising unemployment.

The Summer Games in Beijing wrapped up two months ago, but Britain is still drunk on the heady wine of victory. Thousands of people lined the streets here this week for a boisterous parade honoring the nation’s Olympians, whose surprising haul of gold medals provided extra reason — if one were needed in this pub-strewn country — to party.

London is set to host the Olympics in 2012, but the global financial crisis has left organizers looking for ways to scrimp amid a worldwide credit crunch, tumbling domestic property values and rising unemployment.

Already, the size of the athletes’ village has had to be pared down. Plans to erect temporary sporting venues might be scrapped. And the government could be forced to hollow out its contingency fund of $3.9 billion, out of a total Olympic budget of $16.5 billion, if some of the private financing fails to come through.