The Olympic Games are coming to town sang pseudo-happily to the tune of Santa Claus is coming to town.

“You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I’m telling you why
The Olympic Games are coming to town
They’re building a stadium
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who’s naughty and nice
The Olympic Games are coming to town
There’s missiles on your rooftops
They say they’ll share the wealth
They know when you’ve been shopping…

…in the pound shops so ‘good health!’
O! You better watch out!
You better not cry
Better not pout
I’m telling you why
The Olympic Games are coming to town
The Olympic Games are coming to town”

The following is taken from www.parliament.uk

Parliament Olympics Document

• The London Olympic Games will take place from 27 July to 12 August 2012, with the Paralympics following between 29 August and 9 September.

• The Government Olympic Executive – part of Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) – is the lead government department for the London Olympic Games.

• The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has been established to ensure delivery of the physical infrastructure for the Games.

• The ODA has an overall budget of £8.1bn, but currently anticipates the final cost of its Olympic preparation to be under budget at £7.3bn.

• Including the non-ODA elements of the Olympic preparation, for example security, gives a total budget of £9.3bn. (So the security costs more than the Olympic preparation.)

• The budget is to be financed by the National Lottery (£2.2bn), GLA Olympic council tax precept (£0.6bn), other London (£0.3bn) and Central Government (£6.2bn). This adds up to 9.3 bn? (Ok security taken care off, where’s the rest coming from?)

• It was announced in May 2009 that the Olympic village was to be publicly financed and owned and sold off after the Games. (The Olympic Village has been sold to a Qatari-backed consortium for £557m, in a deal that sets out the long-term development of one of the key assets of the Olympic Park in east London. Delancey, the investment group, and Qatari Diar, the property branch of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, purchased 1,439 of the 2,800 homes i n the village, six plots of land that offer the potential to construct 2,000 more homes and 10 hectares of parkland. They will work alongside Triathlon Homes, which in 2009 separately paid £268m for 1,379 units which will become affordable housing after the Olympics.) www.ft.com

• At December 2009 the gross allocation of contingency was £702m, the majority of which is to be invested in the construction of the Olympic Village. (Ok so the Olympic village is actually costing 700m more than they said.)

• The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) is staging the 2012 Games and will concentrate on the actual delivery of the event.

• The LOCOG budget, estimated to be £2bn in 2012 prices, covers the operating costs of running the Games. By June 2010 LOCOG had secured nearly three-quarters of the income required for its budget. (From where?)

So, not bothering to go in to the above, which is a bit of a no-brainer of financial confusion, here’s why I think the approach taken by the UK of how to hold the Olympic games is utter bullshit… sorry mom for the bad language, but it really pisses me off:

Preface: I love the Olympic games in principle as a sport and have watched them avidly on many occasions – the first time being when they were held in Seoul, in 1988, in the first weeks of my time at Uni, antisocial hours, we used to pile into random people’s dorm rooms to watch them in the late evening/early morning because not many people had TVs in their dorm rooms at Uni. In the past decade due to a demanding job and later – demanding twins I haven’t had much time for them but did take a special interest in 2004 when they were held in Greece, for historical reasons and because I love Greece with such a passion.

Back to the points:

1. We live, apparently, in a double-dip recession, which is why we all have to ‘pull our belts in’, in other words – accept lower pensions, later retirement ages, higher taxes, whatever it means. We can’t afford frivolity.

2. An Olympic Village is an accommodation centre built for the Olympic Games. It doesn’t need to be custom built and is only for accommodation. Could we not have hired a hotel or… OH My God imagine it! Local Church halls, community centres, Mosques – hired them out and jazzed them up, paid for that leaky roof, faulty heating system, tatty old carpet to be fixed – totally jazzed up many community buildings and used them, and left the legacy to the community? I found out today that the Jamaican team are really slumming it actually, in Birmingham, in the Hyatt, poor sods.

3. The pre-olympic training camps are situated across the UK and are places ‘deemed’ as suitable “In the weeks and months leading up to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, athletes from around the world will be acclimatising and preparing for the competition, helped by a grant from LOCOG of up to £25,000 for each Olympic and Paralympic Committee to help with their training camp costs.” Source Back to the Jamaican Olympic Team… oh and they are using some crappy local facilities to train in, facilities that need financial input – like a hole in the head – at Birmingham University “Our top ranked School of Sport and Exercise Sciences offers outstanding programmes in Sport and Exercise Sciences and Sports and Materials Science…one of the top two universities for sport in the U.K.” Birmingham University Alumni Site. Particulary sad because Usain Bolt was educated and trained in Smethwick, a rather poor area of the West Midlands which could really do with a new stadium, or just a lick of paint to be honest

Local community sports centres and schools my not have superb facilities but £25000 might almost certainly help them to get there, and would most definitely give a whole lot of hope and respect into the local community.

4.  The UK is quite small. We could afford to ‘spread it around’ a bit better. (aka – Why the hell was it ever held in London anyway?)

Index of Venues outside London:

Lee Valley White Water Centre – Canoe Slalom (pretty close to London)

Eton Dorney – Rowing, Canoe Sprint, Rowing (pretty close to London)

Hampden Park – Football

Millennium Stadium – Football

Hadleigh Farm – Cycling (Mountain Bike) (pretty close to London)

Old Traûord – Football

St James’ Park – Football

Weymouth and Portland – Sailing, Sailing

City of Coventry Stadium – Football

Venues/events within London:

Olympic Park Aquatics (Diving, Swimming, Synchronised Swimming, Water Polo)

Modern Pentathlon (Swimming, Fencing)

Basketball

Handball

Cycling (BMX)

Hockey

Cycling (Track)

Athletics

Aquatics Centre

Wheelchair Rugby

Goalball

Wheelchair Basketball

Football 7-a-side

Football 5-a-side

Cycling (Track)

Athletics

Wheelchair Tennis

North Greenwich Arena

Basketball (Finals)

Gymnastics

(Artistic/Trampoline)

Wheelchair Basketball

Greenwich Park

Equestrian

Modern Pentathlon

(Riding/Running/Shooting)

Equestrian

The Royal Artillery Barracks

Shooting

Shooting

Archery

ExCeL

Boxing

Judo

Fencing

Taekwondo

Table Tennis

Weightlifting

Wrestling

Boccia

Powerlifting

Table Tennis

Judo

Wheelchair Fencing

Volleyball (Sitting)

Wembley Arena

Badminton

Gymnastics – Rhythmic

Football

Wimbledon

Tennis

Lord’s Cricket Ground

Earls’ Court

Volleyball

Lord’s Cricket Ground

Archery

Horse Guards Parade

Hyde Park

Triathlon

Aquatics (Open Water Swimming)

Horse Guards Parade

Volleyball (Beach)

… so some events are unconnected, meaning the athletes are participating in that event only. So why could some of these events not have been held solely in other cities, in other words why could not this have been the UK Olympic Games? Why could we not have delivered these games appropriately to the current economic climate, the culture of ‘make do and mend’ the pride of a rich and diverse community in a DOUBLE-DIP RECESSION?

Here are the populations of some of the communities engaged in the OG:

UK – population 62000000

Seoul – population 10000000

London 7500000

Greece – 11000000

And some final quotes”

Pampeloponnisiako Stadium is 200km from Athens, for one example. (Greece)

“During construction there was controversy over environmental destruction as wetlands were remodelled for its construction.” (Greece)

“Olympic Village Housing 2,292 apartments were sold to low-income individuals and today the village is home to over 8,000 residents” …hope that happens here (not holding breath – I repeat ‘The Olympic Village has been sold to a Qatari-backed consortium for £557m, in a deal that sets out the long-term development of one of the key assets of the Olympic Park in east London. Delancey, the investment group, and Qatari Diar, the property branch of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, purchased 1,439 of the 2,800 homes i n the village, six plots of land that offer the potential to construct 2,000 more homes and 10 hectares of parkland. They will work alongside Triathlon Homes, which in 2009 separately paid £268m for 1,379 units which will become affordable housing after the Olympics.’)

I wasn’t looking for dramatic quotes, just honest ones.

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