Beijing glory offers lessons for London
He sat at a table in the No Name restaurant in the Houhai area of Beijing and talked about how the world was not being told the full story about the Olympics.
He is a team doctor with one of the bigger nations, attending his eighth Olympics, and having spent the past three weeks in Beijing’s athletes’ village, there were things he had experienced that offer lessons for London as it prepares to host the 2012 Games. “An example,” he said. “We had to take a team to a match in Tianjin. It’s 70 miles from Beijing, about a 2½hour bus ride. We had three police cars in front of the bus, two behind. The motorway was closed. After about an hour and a half, a few of our girls needed to use a loo and they came to me. I asked the Bocog [the Beijing organising committee] guy if he could stop the bus.
“He said it wasn’t possible. I said the girls couldn’t wait until Tianjin. He shook his head. So I got angry and said if the bus didn’t stop there would be an international incident. The girls would use the bus as a toilet.
“Eventually he made a phone call to a superior in Beijing. The superior rang someone higher up. It went on for 15 or 20 minutes before common sense prevailed. But the rigidity, the inflexibility was hard to take.”
It was a story he wanted told but did not want to put his name to. In the world of Olympic politics, accredited personnel dare not speak against Beijing. There were aspects of the Games he liked – the iconic stadiums, the courtesy of the people, the organisation – but something was missing.
“I don’t think there’s an esprit here, no real joie de vivre,” he said. “It’s like they have the hardware but not the software. I never thought I would say this about an Olympics but there’s been blandness about these Games. London will be competing against Sydney 2000 not Beijing – Sydney is the benchmark.”
For Britons watching at home this has been a remarkable Olympics, with their athletes competing more successfully than in any Games in living history. Nineteen golds have led the best medal haul since 1908, when the Games were held in London.
In 2012, however, attention will turn as much to the organisation of the Games, and how it is perceived worldwide, as the success of the athletes themselves. The lesson from Beijing is that the hosts were very good in some respects, not so clever in others.
When the London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton arrived in Beijing three weeks ago, it was the architecture of the stadiums that first impressed him, then the almost perfect organisation – and there was the opening ceremony. It was an event that thrilled the world and deepened London’s sense of humility. “An astonishing piece of work,” said Bill Morris, 2012’s culture, ceremonies and education director.
China’s achievement was an impossible act to follow, it was believed. Deighton talked about 2012 being “different” and the beauty being in the difference. He also acknowledged that in scale and infrastructure, 2012 would not try to compete with Beijing but be a model for future Olympic Games – that is, for host cities with far fewer resources than China, which spent £22 billion.
Yet as the Games have gone on, it has become clear that Beijing has not got everything right; in fact it got some very important things wrong.
After saying all the 6.8m tickets had been sold, the organisers could not explain why so many events were played out in half-empty arenas, which often had to be filled with “cheer squads” of locals. The organisers complained that sponsors had received tickets but not used them, that people had bought tickets for an all-day event but chosen not to turn up for the morning session.
Though it improved through the second week when the athletics finals were often watched by a 91,000 crowd at the bird’s nest, the Olympics never became the festival it could have been.
Bocog and the Chinese government also did not try to create a party mood around the Olympic sites and that hurt their Games.
One lunchtime Tim and Melissa Stewart from New York and their two children, Will, 9, and Maddie, 7, left the morning session at the aquatics centre to watch the gymnastics on television. They stood in the centre of the Olympic Park, encircled by iconic stadiums, but were forlorn.
“Where’s the food?” asked Melissa. “Where’s the big screen? Where’s the place to sit down? The IOC is asking why people aren’t hanging round the Olympic Park, but there’s nothing to keep you here. Outside of the Olympics, everything’s been brilliant in Beijing.”
Lord Coe, chairman of the London organising committee, Deighton and Morris steadfastly refused to offer even the slightest criticism of the Chinese effort, because even if there were weaknesses, China was doing so many other things extremely well.
Yet privately London’s leaders were encouraged. They could succeed where Beijing had fallen down: they could get the ticketing right and they should create the party atmosphere Beijing lacked.
In their eight-minute contribution to today’s closing ceremony, London will offer us a glimpse of how the city means to host the Games. “We will keep it simple, make it youthful, make it entertaining and fun. Don’t overanalyse it, enjoy it, join in,” said Morris.
Central to the optimism is the potential of the 500-acre Olympic Park in east London that will contain the main stadium, the aquatic centre, the cycling velodrome, the athletes’ village and media centres.
“We are talking about a proper park,” said Joanna Manning-Cooper, a spokeswoman for London 2012. “It will be the size of Hyde Park. It will have canal waterways, loads of greens, picnic areas, lots of big screens, plenty of food outlets. We’re also looking at having ‘Henman Hill’ areas and tickets into the park will be low-priced.”
Coe has pledged that the tickets will not be overpriced, and there is a determination to avoid the mistakes Beijing has made. London will consider setting a time limit on sponsor and corporate seats; if they are not occupied by a certain time, the tickets will be reallocated.
Coe acknowledges that sensibly priced tickets will not matter if hotels and restaurants overcharge during the London Games. His committee will work with the relevant authorities in an attempt to ensure this does not happen.
The former Olympic champion must ensure that London’s organisation is first-rate. The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, has already said that the accommodation and transport of athletes must match the standards set in Beijing.
Coe also faces political disagreements that, of course, did not affect the Beijing organisers. With a Tory London mayor in Boris Johnson and, for now at least, a Labour government, he will need all his Westminster experience to handle divergent views about the management and funding of the Games. Johnson will give him a run for his money. Yesterday he pledged that Londoners would “not pay a penny more” than the Games’ current £9.3 billion budget, having earlier in the week proposed offering free tickets to the city’s children.
Coe, however, has a more ambitious target than a well-run and atmospheric Olympics: the 2012 Games must change the landscape of British sport.
“No Games has produced a sustainable shift in participation,” said Coe. “Sydney raised the bar in many respects, but people in Australia will tell you that in terms of participation in sport, that hasn’t happened. It’s important that what we need to do isn’t left until the London Olympics are over.”
Participation in sport will only increase if facilities are improved and funding is provided for more and better coaching. That the landscape needs to change is evident from the composition of the British team in Athens four years ago.
Fifty-eight per cent of the squad’s gold-medallists were educated at independent fee-paying schools where facilities and coaching are better. It was not markedly different at these Games. With 7% of the population in private education, independently educated athletes are eight times more likely to represent Britain at the Olympics than their state-educated rivals.
Coe, the product of a state school himself, understands that the challenge is not solely about putting on a great Olympic Games but going much further than that. It is not whether Team GB wins or loses the medals race, but how many are playing games when the Games have ended.
