The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad, are scheduled to take place in London, England, United Kingdom, from 27 July to 12 August 2012. London will become the first city to officially host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948.
London was elected as the host city on 6 July 2005 during the 117th IOC Session in Singapore, defeating Moscow, New York City, Madrid and Paris after four rounds of voting. The successful bid was headed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe.The Olympics prompted a redevelopment of many of the areas of London in which the games are to be held – particularly themed towards sustainability. While the budgetary considerations have generated some criticism, the Games will make use of many venues which were already in place before the bid, including Wembley Stadium, Wembley arena, Wimbledon All England Club, Lord's Cricket Ground, The O2 Arena, Earls Court Exhibition Centre, Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, and the Excel Centre.
DEVELOPMENT AND PREPARATION
The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games was created to oversee the staging of the Games after the success of the bid, and held their first board meeting on 3 October 2005. The committee, chaired by Lord Coe, is in charge of implementing and staging the games, while the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) is in charge of the construction of the venues and infrastructure. In April 2006 the Olympic Delivery Authority board was established.
The Government Olympic Executive (GOE), a unit within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), is the lead Government body for coordinating the London 2012 Olympics. The GOE reports through the DCMS Permanent Secretary to the Minister for Sports and the Olympics. It focuses on oversight of the Games, cross-programme programme management and the London 2012 Olympic Legacy before and after the Games that will benefit London and the UK. The organisation is also responsible for the supervision of the £9.3 billion of public sector funding.
In August 2011, some security concerns arose surrounding the hosting of the Olympic Games in London, due to the 2011 England riots, with a few countries expressing fear over the safety of the Games, in spite of the International Olympic Committee's assurance that the riots will not affect the Games.
VENUES AND INFRASTRUCTURE
The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will use a mixture of new venues, existing and historic facilities, and temporary facilities, some of them in well-known locations such as Hyde Park and Horse Guards Parade. Some of the new facilities will be reused in their Olympic form, while others, will be resized or relocated.
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, such as the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy on the Isle of Portland in Dorset which will host the sailing events, some 125 miles (200 km) southwest of the Olympic Park. The football tournament will be staged at several grounds around the UK. Work began on the Park in December 2006 when a sports hall in Eton Manor was pulled down. The athletes' village in Portland was completed in September 2011.
In November 2004 the 500 acre Olympic Park plans were revealed. The plans for the site were passed in September 2004 by Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney and Waltham Forest. The redevelopment of the area to build the Olympic Park required compulsory purchase orders of property. The London Development Agency and the London and Continental Railways had a dispute about the orders in November 2005. The LCR accused the LDA of killing off development in the area. The LDA planned alongside the Olympic Park to buy land for the Stratford City development project, which the 180-acre site of the former Stratford Rail Lands into a mixed-use development, including 4,500 new homes, office space, hotels and shops. This resulted in 2011 with the completion of the largest urban shopping centre in Europe being operated by Westfield. By May 2006 86% of the land had been brought as busnesses fought eviction, this lead to an enquiry being set up. 206 companies had to relocate by July 2007.In addition, residents who opposed the eviction tried to find way to stop it by setting up campaigns. However they had to leave as 94% of land was brought and the other 6% brought compulsarly as a £9 billion regeneration project started.
FINANCING
The costs of mounting the Games are separate from those for building the venues and infrastructure, and redeveloping the land for the Olympic Park. While the Games are privately funded, the venues and Park costs are met largely by public money.
On 15 March 2007, Tessa Jowell announced to the House of Commons a budget of £5.3 billion to cover building the venues and infrastructure for the Games, at the same time announcing the wider regeneration budget for the Lower Lea Valley budget at £1.7 billion.
On top of this, she announced various other costs including an overall additional contingency fund of £2.7 billion, security and policing costs of £600 million, VAT of £800 million and elite sport and Paralympic funding of nearly £400 million. According to these figures, the total for the Games and the regeneration of the East London area, is £9.345 billion. Then Mayor Ken Livingstone pledged the Games Organising Committee would make a profit.
The costs for staging the Games (£2 billion) are funded from the private sector by a combination of sponsorship, merchandising, ticketing and broadcast rights. This budget is raised and managed by the London 2012 Organising Committee. According to Games organisers, the funding for this budget broadly breaks down as:
- 64% from Central Government;
- 23% from National Lottery
- 13% from the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency
In November 2007, Edward Leigh MP, criticised the organisers for significantly under-estimating the cost of staging the games, suggesting they had either "acted in bad faith or were incompetent".
On 10 December 2007, Tessa Jowell announced confirmation of the budget announced earlier in 2007. In June 2007, the Ministerial Funders’ Group (established to manage the allocation of contingency to the ODA within the overall budget) met and agreed a first allocation of contingency to the ODA, being £360 million out of the £500 million of initial contingency announced in March, to enable the ODA to manage early cost pressures.
Following its second meeting on 26 November 2007, the Funders’ Group has now agreed a baseline budget and scope proposed by the ODA. The total budgeted base cost to be met by the public sector funding package remains at £6.090 billion including tax and excluding general programme contingency as announced in March. This includes the allocation to the ODA of the remaining £140 million from the initial £500 million contingency announced in March.
There have, however, been concerns over how the Olympics are to be funded. In February 2008, a London Assembly culture and sport committee report expressed concerns over the funding of the games taking away money from London's sports and arts groups. There have also been complaints that funding towards the Olympics has been to the detriment of funding other areas of the UK. In Wales, there has been criticism from Plaid Cymru about the games depriving Wales of money, by using UK-wide funding rather than English funding. The Wales on Sunday newspaper claimed former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair broke his promise to not use National Lottery funding for the Olympic games.
As at December 2009, the Delivery Authority had allocated £702 million of Programme and Funders’ contingency, largely to cover the decisions to publicly fund the Village and Media Centre after it became clear private funding could not be secured on acceptable terms during the 2008 to 2010 economic crisis. According to the Government Olympic Executive and Olympic Delivery Authority risk assessments the remaining £1,270 million contingency is sufficient to manage risks to the Delivery Authority’s programme.
Also from May 2010, the Olympic budget will be cut by £27 million as part of the £6.2 billion cuts by the new Conservative-Liberal coalition government.
On 19 July 2011, Hugh Robertson, Sports & Olympic Minister,revealed that he expected the project to be delivered on time and under budget. "With one year to go to London 2012, the Games construction is 88 per cent complete and ahead of time and under budget. That is an extraordinary thing for a Government Minister to be able to say a year out from the Games."
COUNTDOWN
A digital clock, located in Trafalgar Square, commenced a countdown to the opening ceremony on 14 March 2011. However, less than 24 hours after it was switched on, it suffered a technical failure, and stopped—displaying "500 (days) 7 (hours) 06 (minutes) 56 (seconds)." It was quickly repaired.
Hospitality
The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) appointed Prestige Ticketing Limited to operate the London 2012 Prestige Ticketing programme. The Prestige Ticketing on-site hospitality packages includes top-category tickets, fine dining and entertainment. These hospitality tickets were on sale until March 15, 2011.SCHEDULING ISSUES
Some representatives of Muslim countries have complained that the 2012 Olympic Games will take place during the month of Ramadan, which in 2012 occurs from 20 July to 19 August. During Ramadan, Muslims are to fast from sunrise to sunset, which may put Muslim athletes at a disadvantage during the Games. Some Muslims have called for the Olympics to be rescheduled outside this period.
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