At the beginning of July 2005, London was awarded the 2012 games over Paris, mainly due to the "legacy" that the UK promised the games would bring after the event.
Construction of the stadia and facilities went pretty flawlessly, and the games opened on time with all work completed.
The UK had their best games for over a century.
And there was that Olympic legacy to keep the Olympic flame alive.
The athletic stadium in Stratford was sold off, cheaply, to West Ham.
Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield was allowed to be razed.
Funding for sports that were "underperforming" was cut by 100%.
Its impossible to say had the legacy been in better hands with a Labour Government, but under the coalition and then the Governments of Cameron, May and Johnson, like most public spending, that on sports was slashed too. Odd then that Johnson was Mayor of LOndon at the time, and lapped up the publicity.
The games now seem like the high point of life in the UK post-Thatcher, and now we are on a long slow painful decline, overseen by politicians who know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment