It is not the taking part that counts on this occasion, it’s the winning. Members of the International Olympic Committee’s evaluation commission are in London to assess what the capital has to offer the 2012 Games. From Buckingham Palace to the rail tunnel that will link King’s Cross to Stratford, little of London will be closed to the visitors over the next four days. Traffic lights will be monitored and their sequences altered to speed the visitors around town. The London bid’s boast of jam-free access across the city to the planned Olympic sites, from Stratford to Wimbledon, Lord’s and Wembley, will be tested. Britain cannot win the bid for the 2012 Games this week — but it can lose it.
In particular, the Mayor of London’s refusal so far to apologise for insulting a Jewish reporter after a recent party is an own-goal the city can ill afford. It will, at the very least, raise eyebrows at the IOC. It will also dismay Lord Coe, who has worked closely and well with Ken Livingstone in mounting the bid and must continue to do so. Yet the damage can be undone. An isolated remark after a private function need not sabotage Mr Livingstone’s public efforts on behalf of London’s bid, as long as he has the grace to distinguish between the journalist in question and his employer, the Evening Standard. Whatever the mayor’s opinion of his local newspaper, he owes its man a swift and unreserved apology.
This would clear the way for the rest of the city, which has so much to gain from hosting the Games, to win the hearts of the evaluation commission as the bid organisers pitch for their minds. The visitors are looking not just for clear arterial routes but also for a burst of genuine native pride.
Lord Coe can show his guests the ambitious regeneration plans and proposed new facilities which form the heart of London’s bid. Flags will flutter from lampposts and the Queen will host a dinner. But none of these can substitute for an enthusiastic spirit among Londoners to host the Games.
Already the bid alone has seen the city promised new athletics and cycling stadiums and a £63 million aquatic centre. The £900 million needed to extend the East London line has been secured. The bid has given fresh impetus to Crossrail, and were the Games to come to the capital, regeneration of the Thames Gateway, along a 40-mile stretch of the river east of the Docklands, would be assured.
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If the world’s greatest sporting event comes to Europe, Europe’s most exciting city should be the one to host it. Nowhere else can match London for diversity, history and style, and nowhere else would the Games’ legacy be more vividly memorable. Our children and our grandchildren will remember the two weeks that London stopped everything else to welcome the world. There will be tennis at Wimbledon, archery at Lord’s and gymnastics at the Dome. On Horseguards Parade, marked by the drumbeat of history, there will be the livelier rhythm of beach volleyball.
The British are good at quiet pride. They are also good at scepticism. London’s bid for the 2012 Games has been met with too much of both. What seemed a faint hope a year ago has become a real possibility. London’s bid is a good one and every Briton should champion it. Londoners must greet their visitors this week with a quite unbritish display of enthusiasm. This is not a moment for British reserve. The Games are there to be won.