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Editorial
With pages of editorials in the newspapers today, oodles of television reports, the BBC apparently sent 250 journalists to mark the 1 year count down to the 2012 Games in London, and still London is in no mood for the Olympics.
The Olympics in London will be held during the most economically challenging times this city has ever faced, with the prospect of the anemic economic growth, becoming negative growth in 2012, meaning Londoners will be loosing their jobs, so who the hell will care about the Olympics in east London?
With most Londoners unable to get tickets to the Games, it looks like many of the "common people" will have to tolerate massive amounts of disruption on the roads, public transport during the Games, and for what? Higher Council Tax bills, a non-existent legacy, which the mainstream press are already gullible enough to herald will be affordable housing. It will be interesting to see how many actual homes will be earmarked to families and individuals on low wages from the housing stock being allocated on the Olympic park site.
The most annoying thing of all is that the purpose of the Olympics coming to London was to inspire a generation of children to become athletes and be more active in sport. All we are seeing and reading now is a generation plagued by obesity and inactivity, sports federations wasting money on elite level athletes and forgetting grass roots participation. Its time now w all start asking questions about the value the Olympics will actually bring to London. Will we be healthier, fitter and ultimately more prosperous after the Olympics?
For those of us who actually give our time to grass roots sport development in our local community, unfortunately the Olympics "movement" have totally bypassed us and means nothing to us going forward. £9.8 billion could have spent better on other more important projects than ultra-modern sports stadiums in east London. photo credit: ODA press office Getty
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