London 2012: One Year Out

The scale of the summer Olympic Games can be summed up thus: 10,250 athletes; 6,000 coaches and officials; at least 30,000 media; 26 simultaneous world championships; over nine million tickets; the biggest peacetime volunteer force in the world; the biggest building site in the world. London is currently preparing for the most technically advanced and sustainable Olympic Games in history.

The Games were won six years ago, on a memorable July day in Singapore, and since then organisational structures have been put in place; budgets ratified and tweaked and then ratified again, and venues built. They have survived a change of British government and an economic crisis. Although there have been several bumps in the road, in global terms none have been too significant, especially given the IOC’s recent experiences of infrastructure problems in Athens and the political climate surrounding Beijing 2008.

Under the watchful eyes of double Olympic champion Sebastian Coe, the chairman of London’s local organising committee (Locog) and the organisation’s chief executive, the former Goldman Sachs executive Paul Deighton, preparations have taken another step up in the first half of 2011. The Olympic Stadium is one of a handful of venues inside the Olympic Park to already be completed and attention has switched to filling the venues: the ticket sales process has been the subject of much debate and some controversy in recent weeks across the United Kingdom.

In the August edition of the magazine, SportsPro examines the preparations for the London Games from a variety of angles. The perspective of a worldwide Olympic partner and International Olympic Committee top sponsor is provided by Samsung; something of a Games veteran, it is basing its London 2012 activation on the notion that it will be ‘Everyone’s Games.’ The domestic sponsorship view comes from Lloyds TSB’s Gordon Lott, a man rolling out the company’s plans to ensure the Olympics touch communities whilst at the same time justifying the investment in the wake of a financial crisis and a strategic review that includes staff cuts. Cisco’s role in creating and maintaining the complex computer network an Olympic Games requires, and Freshfields’ function to ensure a proper legal infrastructure is in place, are also examined, as is one of the most important London 2012 venues: the vast Westfield shopping mall and complex currently under construction alongside the Olympic Park in east London. Each company provides a fascinating insight into next year’s Olympics; there are many more all across the UK’s capital city and beyond.

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