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- guardian.co.uk, Sunday December 15 2002 00.33 GMT
In the week before the 2000 Olympics, Sydney was at a standstill. Life was a logjam around Homebush Bay and the view was not so much of Harbour Bridges and Opera Houses as of bunting outside the second-hand car dealers on the Parramatta Road. You could buy a five-year old Toyota, no probs, mate, and go precisely nowhere in it. It was going to be Millennium mayhem and the whole Olympic idea was a stinker.
And then the Games began. And the traffic melted away. And Sydney moved and shook to the best sporting fortnight on record. If there was the occasional queue at security checkpoints, they were handled with such politeness by the volunteer workforce that the incoming world was charmed into line.
It was not as if Sydneysiders made a collective decision to co-operate. That would be asking too much, even of sports-mad Australians. But they surrendered. Many locals fled town for the duration of the Games, leaving the arteries of the city behind them. Others changed their commuting habits, fitting work into the gaps between the sport. In short, Sydney adapted to the flow of the Games and the result was harmony.
It might be stretching things to suggest that bringing the modern Games to London for the third time would come complete with open spaces on the Embankment and unfailing courtesy on the Central Line. Depending on how you view life in the capital, it is either too cynical, too civilised, too multi-cultural or too self-centred to be moved by sport. Or by sport that isn't football. London may simply be too big and too busy.
But somehow it feels inadequate to cite poor transport as a reason not to bid for the Olympics. It could even be a selling point to visitors: enjoy the speed of one of the great cities of the world... at walking pace. Apart from the Heathrow bus lane, of course. If the smoothness of the transfer from Terminal 3 to the outskirts of Brentford doesn't impress the International Olympic Committee, then it's hard to think what will.
IF, HOWEVER, SOMETHING else is required after all, then why not use the Olympics as a trigger for change? In the course of our normal politics, long-term projections about road and rail usage have been so wildly inaccurate that we have slumped over our steering wheels. Nobody predicted all this increase in car numbers and decrease in rail services, so we just accept Transport Secretary Alastair Darling's apologies and remain stuck. There are no longer any deadlines to meet.
But the Olympics would impose a time scale. The home population may be traffic-jammed into indifference, but the fear of becoming the butt of international scoffing might rekindle the indignation that we do rather well, and not just in Tunbridge Wells. Politics and sport really do mix.
Of course, we have seen our governments moved by what they have perceived as the public mood and we have seen them leap into action. The Dome. And Wembley. It just shows how good we are in the world of entertainment and sport.
When you consider that in those countries where they really thought these things through - Sydney, Montreal and Munich spring to mind - and that the Olympic Games left a lot of debt and deserted venues in each, it makes it even harder to see how we would make anything but a complete cock-up of the whole thing.
But it is also good to have got your mistakes in early. Knowing what not to do is as important as any fanciful flourishes from the designer's brush when it comes to putting the bid together. Yes, we should need some new venues and some smart hotel rooms, but it might be better to leave Ken Bates in Chelsea Village when it comes to redesigning the East End's Olympic Village.
Surely it is possible in the decade between now and 2012 to find tenants who would be only too willing to move into the facilities once they have served their Olympic purpose. I suppose a lot will depend on how well Manchester City settle into the City of Manchester Stadium, the model we have of how to transfer one-off athletics to regular football. If Spurs could be persuaded to sign up to a similar house-move, it might soothe a few accounting nerves.
It still requires a level of government investment that is bound to send a shiver down the spine of any minister who ever touched the Dome file, but if we cannot persuade our political masters that sport is worth a punt then we are wasting our time. I'm not sure we can. Sport remains lightweight in our political consciousness and this whole Olympic project will require some heavy lobbying.
OH DEAR. I'M aware that I am not making a very strong pitch here. But that is another factor. Before the Barcelona Olympics of 1992, all the talk was of stadiums that would not be ready on time. 'Will the Games be good?' the Catalans were asked. 'We hope so,' they said. They turned out to be a triumph, a success story that was the equal of Sydney.
'Will the Games be good?' the organisers of Atlanta were asked in 1996. 'You bet your arse they will,' was the reply. 'The best ever.' Atlanta turned out to be what we might seasonally call a turkey. Too many boasts were followed by too many flaws. Including traffic chaos.
Paris, London, New York... everybody will be talking pop music. There will be a lot of froth and a lot of promises. Without, one hopes, too many of the presents that have turned some Olympic committee members venal in the past. The Brits perhaps remain in sport less corruptible than most. Fewer backhanders and more caution.
'Will the London Games be good?' 'D'you know, we think there's a chance they will. It'll be a challenge, of course, but it's the sort of thing we used to be rather good at.' Nobody is expecting anyone to rush into this - and we shall have to accept that even if some Olympic light railway is built nobody will ever be able to rush across London - but there is a chance here to reveal ourselves at our best. Old-style determination with trendiness thrown in: brownfield sites, urban regeneration. Partying.
This must be about more than frilliness and finance. If London can capture the spirit of the Olympics of 2012, just as Manchester threw itself into the Commonwealth Games of last summer and just as Sydney glowed to the Games of the new millennium, there is a chance that we may raise our own goosebumps again.
The Steve Redgrave moment on the home front. There must be a dockland stretch of water that can accommodate Matthew Pinsent going for a sixth gold medal... Even the London bankers trudging to work might pause and catch the roar on the breeze. And work out how much such a moment is worth for the City. Sorry, the city. If the London Olympics are good, the mood and the money will be good for everyone.
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