Giving the Games back to the nation

To the majority of British people, London feels like a different country. Fortunately, the Olympics belongs to them too

Speaking to Host City at the Legacy Lives conference in London, Tessa Jowell, Minister for the Olympics and London said: “Our aim is to make the whole country feel that these are their 2012 Olympics.” This is just as well, because London would not have the Games at all if it were not for the experience and support of the whole country. The success of London’s 2012 bid was a result of lessons learned from Manchester’s bid for the 2000 Olympics and same city’s successful hosting of the Commonwealth Games in 2002.

Tessa Jowell, Minister for the Olympics and London,
spoke to Host City

Sheldon Phillips of the Northwest Development Agency says: “It was the successful Commonwealth Games that showed the power that major events have in terms of regeneration, economic development and media attention. We fully supported the London bid. We want to contribute to a successful Games, including delivering part of the football at Old Trafford; we want to use the Games as a catalyst to realise our own regional objectives and we want to create opportunities for people from the northwest to engage with the Games.”

London’s bid also owes its success to the involvement of local politicians such as Essex county councillor Stephen Castle, chairman of the East of England’s Nations and Region Group for the 2012 Games. “In Essex we have been working on this project for seven years,” he says. “We were part of the original ‘Back the Bid’. We were very clear that a London Olympics hosted on the Eastern side of the city was going to have a huge impact on Essex.”

Essex has a unique claim to the 2012 Games as Stratford, the host location for London 2012, used to be part of the county. “We like to describe 2012 as the West Essex Olympics,” Castle jokes.

Legacy benefits for the whole country were at the heart of London’s bid. Castle says: “We have had our work cut out since Singapore to turn our legacy pledge into reality. This is really about using the power of the Games to help us to deliver on priorities we already have in the East of England.”

The health of nations
One of the greatest legacies a sports event can deliver is to get people involved in physical activity. Jowell told Host City: “We will be making the most of the opportunity of the 2012 Olympics to deliver a lasting increase in sports participation. School sport is the centrepiece of the legacy promise – the commitment to 16 to 19 year olds.”

The ultimate goal is to make sure that 2 million more people will be playing sport or being physically active by the 2012 Games. “That is probably the most stretching aim of all, because no country has ever achieved that except Finland. It would make a major contribution to the broader public health gains that can be derived from the Olympics.”

One way of helping to achieve this is to spread sports events across the country. The 2012 mountain bike event will take place in Essex. Castle says: “The International Cycling Union came to Essex and they noticed that there weren’t many hills. We managed to find a hill and we are hosting the event in Hadleigh Farm in ‘Constable Country’, which will be a fantastic location; it’s got more verticals than any other mountain bike course in the Olympics.”

In the northwest, the Olympics has acted as a catalyst for a number of other sporting events. Phillips says: “We have taken account of the build-up to 2012 to determine what events we wish to support, ranging from World Junior Beach Volleyball in Blackpool, World Track Cycling and the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester to the Great North Swim in the Lake District.”

These events incorporate a range of activities to ensure the wider public can also get involved. Last year’s Paralympic World Cup featured a disability sport development programme with “come-and-try-it” sessions. “We also launched the IPC’s Paralympic education programme in association with the Academy of Sport Manchester University. The Great North Swim was set up on the introduction of open water swimming at the Beijing Olympics; this year’s event is sold out with 7,000 swimmers taking part,” says Phillips.

Sports events have been very closely linked with healthcare initiatives. The northwest’s leading cancer facility has teamed up with the Greenbank sports academy of Liverpool, a specialist facility that provides sporting opportunities for disabled children and adults. Another project called On Track has just been launched by the Olympian Jonathan Edwards to provide opportunities for patients to access sport as part of their rehabilitation. “That simply would not have happened without the inspiration of the 2012 Games,” Phillips says.

Beyond sport
Tessa Jowell told Host City: “Our aim is to unlock that very special sense of Olympic ambition which is unique to an Olympic Games.”

But this ambition is not restricted to sport; it also includes regional identity. Castle says: “It is about engaging the entire community of the county; it’s also about changing perceptions of the county, which are not always positive. The mountain biking event is going to be hosted in what is perhaps regarded as the most stereotypical part of Essex, south Essex, where some of those negative stereotypes happen.”

Another ambitious goal of the 2012 Olympics is to bring together two great human endeavours that are often polarised: sports and art. Castle says: “We are combining sport and culture in terms of impact and legacy. A team of artists work with athlete’s ambassadors to create a unique piece of art that celebrates their journey to the podium at 2012.”

The NWDA is hosting cultural events amid the country’s most spectacular landscape. Phillips says: “One of the huge successes on the cultural side has been Lakes Alive, an outdoor performance programme that is taking place in 2009-2012 in the Cumbrian Lake District. The programme has already staged a number of world class productions which have engaged local communities and attracted thousands of visitors to the area.”

While the importance of the Cultural Olympiad has been trumpeted by LOCOG, the programme has not yet been finalised due to internal reorganisation. Jowell told Host City: “The Cultural Olympiad is absolutely integral. It is being led by Tony Hall; we’ve a Cultural Olympiad board and Ruth MacKenzie has just been appointed as director. What Tony and his board are doing is developing a programme of events.”

Jowell went on to reveal some of the content of these events. “From a world Shakespeare festival to cultural installations that reflect the identity of every region of the country, there’s a whole programme of major cultural events together with a programme of community cultural activities. They will all be absolutely world class and consistent with London and the UK’s destination as a major cultural destination. We see this as being consistent with Pierre de Coubertin’s initial image of a modern Olympics; culture will be absolutely fundamental.”

The 2012 Games has broken new ground by working with the IOC to develop the “Inspire” mark, the non-commercial logo which is being awarded to community organisations around the country. Jowell told Host City: “Several hundred have already been awarded to community enterprises around the country in sport, culture, in sustainability and civic engagement. We see this becoming increasingly a focused Olympic activity in schools. This is a big first and one of the institutions of London 2012 that we hope the IOC will continue.”