Olympics should get back to basics
Last updated 11:35, Thursday, 24 April 2008
IN any other situation Tessa Jowell, the minister responsible for mismanaging the financing of London 2012, would have been forced to resign.
But these days ministers make so many boobs there would be no-one left to run the country into ruin if they all did the decent thing.
No-one knows what the final bill will be for staging the London Olympics. Billions of pounds are being tossed around like confetti.
The whole Olympic concept has been destroyed by the unseemly and costly rush to make each Games bigger and better that the last one.
I can’t believe that the so-called legacy of London is going to be worth all this.
Why, they even spent £750,000 on security when the Olympic torch was paraded through London recently. Just think how many junior sports clubs and pitches could have been financed with that money alone.
It’s time to draw a halt to the spending obscenity that has overtaken the modern Olympic movement.
Stop the competition to stage the Games. Hold them in one regular location. Get back to something approaching the Olympic ideal.
Tessa Jowell has never been convincing at the best of times, but now her protestations about the value of 2012 sound more hollow than ever.
If only we could scrap the whole sorry mess and send the 2012 Games to Paris, but of course it’s too late for that.
I feel sorry for the athletes who have no choice over where the Olympics take place. They spend years preparing for what should be the pinnacle of their sporting lives, only to find that the politicians are grabbing the headlines.
It’s time for the Olympics to get back to basics, but while countries bend them for political purposes there’s little chance of it.
