The official website for the London 2012 Olympic Games counts down 1 day, 21 hours and 37 minutes to the opening, as we speak. Like the average Brit, I'm not overly excited about the summer Games this time around, oddly.
Maybe the host city, London as a place and Olympic venue doesn't interest me as much as Havana would but the bidding Cuban city unfortunately never made the shortlist. I missed a lecture yesterday, 'From Showcase to Place: London 2012 Athlete Village' by Greg Deas, the Chief Architect from LendLease assigned to jump-start the urban revitalisation program at Stratford, East London. Deas wanted to talk about the "urban design, and sustainability strategies" his team of 17 architects have put together for what essentially is 'a housing project' fashioned as a world-class Olympic Village at the heart of the brand-new English Olympic Park.
I never quite got why London should host the event. Then again, the 1940 Games was awarded to Tokyo (and it never took place there).. did they really not see World War 2 coming? Would the romantic spirit of the Olympic Games really have had prevented the nuclear strikes?
Spoken during the bid back in 2005, the Brits hoped to "inspire a lasting change" and they believed that they "understood the recipe for (a) magical Games" which would include having a "superb technical plan". That's exactly the kind of pitch a Chairman of the British Olympic Association would sell - the kind that corporate executives are so used to throwing out there to look and sound good. For starters, didn't the Brist whinge endlessly about how much harder it is to get to work on the tube of late? They do it without the Olympics anyway but this time, they get to whinge on TV.
At wrap-up, they boldly guaranteed that the Games would "create a community where sport is an integral part of everyday life - a model for 21st century living, the embodiment of the philosophy of Pierre de Coubertin". Didn't they know the Olympic Games founder was a romantic writer who believed that struggle is more important than triumph? He won an Olympic Gold Medal for literature! Yes, literature - and they won't even make chess part of the summer Games as a contending medal event. I digress. If only Coubertin knew that the Olympic Oath has been changed to include this phrase: without doping, and without drugs...
Maybe the host city, London as a place and Olympic venue doesn't interest me as much as Havana would but the bidding Cuban city unfortunately never made the shortlist. I missed a lecture yesterday, 'From Showcase to Place: London 2012 Athlete Village' by Greg Deas, the Chief Architect from LendLease assigned to jump-start the urban revitalisation program at Stratford, East London. Deas wanted to talk about the "urban design, and sustainability strategies" his team of 17 architects have put together for what essentially is 'a housing project' fashioned as a world-class Olympic Village at the heart of the brand-new English Olympic Park.
I never quite got why London should host the event. Then again, the 1940 Games was awarded to Tokyo (and it never took place there).. did they really not see World War 2 coming? Would the romantic spirit of the Olympic Games really have had prevented the nuclear strikes?
Spoken during the bid back in 2005, the Brits hoped to "inspire a lasting change" and they believed that they "understood the recipe for (a) magical Games" which would include having a "superb technical plan". That's exactly the kind of pitch a Chairman of the British Olympic Association would sell - the kind that corporate executives are so used to throwing out there to look and sound good. For starters, didn't the Brist whinge endlessly about how much harder it is to get to work on the tube of late? They do it without the Olympics anyway but this time, they get to whinge on TV.
At wrap-up, they boldly guaranteed that the Games would "create a community where sport is an integral part of everyday life - a model for 21st century living, the embodiment of the philosophy of Pierre de Coubertin". Didn't they know the Olympic Games founder was a romantic writer who believed that struggle is more important than triumph? He won an Olympic Gold Medal for literature! Yes, literature - and they won't even make chess part of the summer Games as a contending medal event. I digress. If only Coubertin knew that the Olympic Oath has been changed to include this phrase: without doping, and without drugs...
Still, I'm interested to see how London takes shape in the coming years; how those "lasting changes" would effect London so we can then quantify the 'success' of the 2012 Games. Whether or not the Games would be "magical", I only care for two events this time i.e. the tennis men's singles, and the 100m dash on the men's track. Hopefully Roger Federer clinches the Gold at Wimbledon (even better if he beats Murray again *wide grin), and the 9.58secs mark gets broken - by Usain Bolt or not. A few rare inspirational stories here and there on sportsmanship will also be refreshing.
Let the Games begin.
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