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2012 Summer Olympics

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The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad, will be held in London, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to host the Olympics three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948.

The bidding process

Main article: 2012 Summer Olympic bids
File:London wins.jpg
London celebrates after winning the right to host the 2012 games

By the bid submission deadline of 15 July 2003, nine cities had submitted bids to hold the 2012 Olympics. These cities were Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig, London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, Paris, and Rio de Janeiro.

On 18 May 2004, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as a result of a scored technical evaluation, reduced the number of cities to five: London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, and Paris.

Throughout the process, Paris, after trying for three times, was widely seen as the favourite to win the nomination with London a close second.

On 6 July 2005, the final selection occurred was announced at the Raffles City Convention Centre in Singapore, where the 117th IOC Session was held. Moscow was the first city to be eliminated, followed by New York and Madrid. The final two cities left in contention were London and Paris. At the end of the fourth round of voting, London won the right to host the 2012 Games with 54 votes, defeating Paris's 50.

2012 Summer Olympics bidding results
Bid NOC Name Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4
London 2012  United Kingdom 22 27 39 54
Paris 2012  France 21 25 33 50
Madrid 2012  Spain 20 32 31 -
New York City 2012  United States 19 16 - -
Moscow 2012  Russia 15 - - -

Sports

The 2012 Summer Olympics programme will feature 26 sports and a total of 35 disciplines. London's bid featured 28 sports, in line with other recent Summer Olympics, but the IOC voted to drop baseball and softball from the 2012 Games two days after it selected London as the host city. Before the removal of baseball and softball the organisers planned to issue 8 million tickets for the Olympics and 1.6 million for the Paralympics. It is planned that three quarters of all tickets will cost less than £50. Tickets to the Olympic Park, where events will be shown on giant video screens, will cost £10. It is estimated that 82% of available Olympic tickets and 63% of Paralympic tickets will be sold.

Venues

The 2012 Olympics will use a mixture of newly built venues, existing facilities, and temporary facilities, some of them in well known locations such as Hyde Park and Horse Guards Parade. In the wake of the problems that plagued the Millennium Dome, the intention is that there will be no white elephants after the games. Some of the new facilities will be reused in their Olympic form, while others will be reduced in size and several will be relocated elsewhere in the UK. The plans will contribute to the regeneration of Stratford in east London which will be the site of the Olympic Park, and of the neighbouring Lower Lea Valley. However this will require the compulsory purchase of some businesses and this has caused controversy, with some of the business owners claiming that the compensation offered is inadequate. The purchased buildings would be demolished to make way for Olympic venues and infrastructure improvements.

The majority of venues have been divided into three zones within Greater London: the Olympic Zone, the River Zone and the Central Zone. In addition to these are those venues that, by necessity, are outside the boundaries of Greater London.

Olympic Zone

File:2012 Olympic Park.jpg
The Olympic Zone (view from North)

The Olympic Zone will encompass all of the facilities within the 500 acre Olympic Park in Stratford. This park will be developed on existing waste and industrial land, at grid reference TQ379849, and will be just seven minutes by Olympic Javelin train from central London. The park will contain:

River Zone

ExCel Exhibition Centre

The River Zone will feature five main venues in the Thames Gateway area straddling the River Thames:

Central Zone

File:Newwembley.jpg
Computer generated image of New Wembley Stadium
(2006)

The Central Zone will be formed out of all the remaining venues within Greater London. They are quite widely spread across central and West London:

Outside Greater London

Three of the venues will be just outside Greater London:

The Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, in Dorset on the south coast of England, will be used for the sailing events. It is around 120 miles (192km) from central London.

The earlier stages of the football competition will be played at football stadia around the country including:

Infrastructure

Public transport, an aspect of the proposal which scored poorly for the bid, will see numerous improvements, including the expansion of the London Underground's East London Line, upgrades to the Docklands Light Railway and the North London Line, and the new "Olympic Javelin" service. It is almost impossible to assess how many of the proposed improvements would have happened in any case. The games were won without a commitment to deliver Crossrail by 2012. This is the largest transport project proposed for London, and it was widely assumed in the early stages of the bid that the games could not be won without it.

During the games 80% of athletes will be within 20 minutes of their events and 97% will be within 30 minutes of their events. It is estimated that 80% of spectators will arrive by rail. Together, all the planned heavy rail, light rail, and underground services (excluding Crossrail) are expected to deliver around 240 trains every hour. [1] There will also be two park and ride sites off the M25 motorway with a combined capacity of 12,000 cars.

Budget

The principal items in the budget are listed below. All of these figures are estimates and they may change. The lists are incomplete:

Costs

  • £560 million for new venues, including £250 million for the Olympic Stadium.
  • £65 million for the Olympic village.
  • £1.5 billion to run the Games.
  • £200 million on security.

Revenue

  • £1.5 billion from a special Olympic National Lottery game.
  • £625 million from a council tax surcharge of £20 per year for London households.
  • £560 million from IOC TV and marketing deals.
  • £450 million from sponsorship and official suppliers.
  • £300 million from ticket sales.
  • £250 million from the London Development Agency.
  • £60 million from licensing.

The bid team believed that London could end the Games with a surplus of more than £100 million.

The British Government plans to spend £800 million on infrastructure improvements on the Lower Lea Valley. This is not included in the Olympic budget. The total cost of public transport costs relevant to the Games is estimated at £7 billion, but most of these projects would probably have happened in any case, though perhaps slightly later.

The Legacy of the Games

Sports Venues

One of the priorities governing the contents of London's bid was to avoid leaving "white elephants" after the games. The legacy sports venues in London will be:

  • A 25,000 seat athletics stadium.
  • The Aquatics Centre.
  • The Velopark.
  • A 5,000 seat hockey venue.
  • The Broxbourne Slalom Course.

In addition, several of the indoor arenas will be assembled elsewhere in the UK. The construction of the Aquatics Centre and the Velopark was confirmed before London won the Games, so it might be more accurate to call them legacies of the bid rather than of the Games. While the legacy venues will be tailored to London's ongoing needs, some of them will be expensive for that purpose. For example, London will have paid for a 80,000 seat athletics stadium, but will only possess a 25,000 seat stadium. This could change, however, as media reports have claimed that Tottenham Hotspur or West Ham United could move into the stadium.

Involvement in UK Sport

Those involved in British sport are hopeful that there will also be a legacy of increased commitment to sport in the UK, with the social and health benefits they believe that could bring, but it will be difficult to assess whether or not this really happens. Some commentators have argued that it would be better to invest directly in grass roots sport.

Disability organisations including the Autism Awareness Campaign UK are confident that the Olympic and Paralympic Games will encourage people across the disability spectrum to take up sport.

Social and Economic Benefits

Other legacy items will include the conversion of the Olympic Village Polyclinic into a lifelong learning centre for the east London community with a nursery and primary and secondary schools, and the conversion of the media and press centre into a creative industries centre for east London. The organisers claim that 3,000 new permanent jobs will be created, but opponents of the games are concerned that some of the 11,000 existing jobs in the Olympic Zone may be lost [2]. It is also hoped that there will be a wider economic effect from the improvements which the games might make to London's image.

Transport

File:2012legacymap.jpg
The Legacy Map of the transport infrastructure that will be available after the 2012 Olympics in London

The transport legacy for the capital includes new bus transit schemes, extensions to existing Underground lines, redevelopments of London Underground stations and upgrades to the trains used. There will also be many upgrades to National Rail services with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, a new high speed rail link, several new stations and upgrades to stations such as Kings Cross St.Pancras. Please view the Legacy Map in order to see the upgrades to the London Transport network in context.

References

See also

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