FOR four days their every question, gesture and remark will be scrutinised for the slightest indication of their response to London’s bid for the 2012 Olympics.
The 13 members of the International Olympic Committee Evaluation Commission sat through nine hours of slides, charts, maps and bullet points yesterday on the 17 “key themes” of the London bid, including transport, environment and funding. They were addressed by Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, Jonathan Porritt, the environmental campaigner, and Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, as well as officials from London 2012 on the fine details of the bid. The event opened with a stirring speech given by Lord Coe, the London 2012 chairman, which was honed by The Times’s Daniel Finkelstein.
But despite a year’s planning and weeks of rehearsals, including voice coaching for London 2012 staff on Wednesday night, the bid team were nevertheless left surprised by the sheer detail demanded by the IOC during the question-and-answer session.
At a press conference after the first series of IOC presentations, Sir Steve Redgrave, the five-times Olympic gold medal winner, said that some of the London staff appeared taken aback. “The questions were very in-depth. They were very valid questions on different elements that they didn’t quite understand from the documents.
“Some of the bid team came out of the room looking a little bit concerned,” he said.
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The former rower sat through the first question-and-answer sessions. He continued: “We are not allowed to say what questions they were asking us but you can imagine that they were quite in-depth. It was very constructive and we got some very powerful messages across.” The IOC members have drawn up strict rules about what the bid team can reveal because they are determined not to appear to favour one city over another, or even to be seen to compare them publicly in any way.
They are also keen not to give the other bid cities — New York, Moscow and Paris — any early warning about their line of questioning.
Dame Kelly Holmes, the double gold medal-winning runner, was another of the four Olympians to appear before the IOC yesterday, along with the triple jumper Jonathan Edwards and the boxer Amir Khan.
She also expressed surprise at some of the questions. “When I heard the questions, I was very pleased I was not in the position of having to answer them,” she said.
The commission’s examination was so in-depth that one IOC expert was free to ask 19 questions on sports involved in the bid. These included where grooms tending horses in the equestrian events would sleep and how mature trees around the Olympic park would be by 2012. The bid team had replies ready and answered fully.
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Our Olympic pitch, widely acknowledged as being make or break for London’s chances, began at 8.35am at the Four Seasons Hotel close to Canary Wharf, the IOC commission’s London base for the next three days. After showing a video of London’s “master plan”, presented by Sue Barker, the former tennis player and sports broadcaster, the commission heard from Lord Coe and Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London. Lord Coe told the IOC that the world would enjoy the “best Games ever” in London.
“London’s ambition is not just to be a good Olympic Games — it has to be the best,” he said. “We will deliver on time and on budget because we have already begun build-ing and because our attention is focused on the next generation.”
The Princess Royal, an IOC member, was also on hand to answer questions, and gave the speech to IOC members at the official lunch on the 50th floor of Canary Warf, where the London 2012 headquarters is based.