Here we are, a week out from the closing ceremony, and I’m still enjoying the games, bits of the huge quantity of sport I absorbed during the previous two weeks keep coming back to me, not the spectacular stuff necessarily but bits from the handball or the volleyball, a bit of boxing or fencing, not always that coherent. Four years is going to be a long time to wait for another such offering. But even then it won’t be the same, it will all be here, at civilised times, no staying up through the night and if the toe curling start to London being the official Olympic city, thanks to the tosspot toff Johnson, then it’s going to be a very different experience, altogether. ‘A very different experience!’, sorry, old Airplane gag. I haven’t been going out of my way looking for articles or reports but I’ve heard nothing negative about the organisation, transport or administration of the Beijing games, nor have I heard about much in the way of protests, and just briefly on this topic, people may want to look into the feudal nature of Tibetan society pre-Chinese take over before getting too teary eyed. This was, essentially an all new build games which should have ensured as smooth a run operation as can be achieved, and may be the last such Games for a long time with 2012 becoming the template which will show that the Games have a bright future at a cost far more achievable to many more countries than those who looked at Beijing and concluded that bringing the Games to their country was unattainable. But, and it’s a big but, there will be complaints about transport, admin and organisation, the nature of London ensures that there will need to be arrangement, contingency and re-arrangement and a lot of it on the fly and not all of it will go smoothly, it will only be the matter of degree that will dictate if 2012 will be the template. von Molke said ‘no battle plan survives contact with the enemy’, the motto of London 2012 might well be, ‘no logistics plan survives contact with the general public and antiquated urban infrastructure’. The athletes need to understand that there will be a level of uncertainty and flexibility to be tolerated to ensure the Games go well and that is what is needed to ensure countries, other than the handful of super-rich countries, believe they can host the Games.
And now to the knotty problem of how we can build on the success of Team GB. I have to say that I am concerned that the possibility of finishing fourth in 2012 is now less likely than it was three weeks ago or we will have to spend significantly more money to stand still. The likes of Dave Brailsford and Jurgen Groebler, and significant numbers of their coaching staff, must be targets for many other teams who could come along with offers that were unimaginable a few months or even weeks ago. I’m not suggesting for one moment that either is mercenary in their approach yet unimaginable is just that, as must be their reaction to receiving such on offer. Do we continue to fund success? This seems to be the strategy. Realistically, how much more success can be achieved in cycling or rowing? Were Adlington’s victories in the pool enough to attract more funding into swimming or will it be cut? There is the added debate as to whether this level of achievement was despite or because of the work of the departed Bill Sweetman? How about boxing? The return in the ring, one gold and two bronze, would appear to be a very decent outcome, but what of the issues outside the ring? One boxer couldn’t make the weight and another apparently acted like a twat and this was announced to the world just prior to the medal bouts. Surely there are management and coaching issues here. I don’t have any ideas or convictions about how these matters need to be addressed but I see a hugely convoluted path to be followed to reach the target that’s been set and immense pressure on athletes, coaches, administrators and funding bodies to steer this course. In the final analysis, should we end up 6th or 7th in the medal table in 2012, with about 40 medals or so, about 85% of the return from Beijing, then I will feel that a decent job has been done all around and anything above this would be exceptional.
