FOLLOW that, London.
That was the daunting task for organisers and sportsmen alike as Britain's Olympians returned from Beijing 2008 having raised the bar in so many ways.
The secret, however, is not to copy Beijing, but to learn the lessons from a Games where money w
as no object and whose political agenda was to charm the West as much as to provide the greatest festival of sport the world has seen.
The number one lesson for London is that the spectators are as important as the athletes.
It is something at times Beijing, in its attempts to impress the world, forgot.
For the best part of the first week the 2008 Olympics were the no-fun Games, played out in an Olympic Park which was vast enough to house half a million spectators but on which fans appeared dotted around as sparsely as sheep on Exmoor.
The Chinese made the mistake of only allowing ticketed fans into the Olympic Park and with the Bird's Nest stadium essentially empty until the athletics began it meant vast areas remained just that – empty. There was little attempt to lay on entertainment, few big screens, apart from those atop huge skyscrapers, no sense of an Olympic experience.
No sense of the carnival which was such an important element of the Games in Sydney in 2000. Only in the second week when the ticketing error had been relaxed and when the stadium opened did huge crowds appear to take their photos of the magnificent National Stadium, the stunning Olympic flame and the impressive Water Cube which housed the aquatics events.
Only then did the Olympics come to life for the people of Beijing. London is unlikely to make such a mistake. The Olympic Park at Stratford is more compact, housing more of the main events and with the British mania for sport no venues are likely to see the rows and rows of empty seats which were a feature of the Olympic tennis tournament here.
London, with its lure for celebrities and pop stars and its tradition for laying on concerts, could be the Rock n' Roll Olympics in a way which the Chinese authorities could never envisage. But if China's attempt to spread the Olympic spirit throughout a teeming city was flawed then the same cannot be said for the organisation.
The transport, London's biggest fear, worked with supreme efficiency. Buses ran on time, the Olympic lanes maintained traffic flow for competitors and staff, even if Beijing residents were stuck in the traffic jams which are a feature of this city. The attention to detail was meticulous, down to the motorised fans inserted inside the national emblems to ensure fluttering, rather than limp flags at the top of the medal flagpoles. And the 20,000 or so volunteers? They were magnificent.
Any Olympics is only as good as its volunteer staff and no doubt the Beijing volunteers were proud of their Games and desperate to show off their country in its best light.
Again London will have no problems in that regard, if the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 were anything to go by.
Then, of course, there is the sport. If ever athletes were given a working model of how to deliver medals by conveyor belt then it came from the cyclists, sailors and rowers who plundered gold in Beijing. Especially the cyclists. If BOA performance director Sir Clive Woodward does just one thing in the next four years then it should be to get cycling guru Dave Brailsford to share his secrets with every British sport.
The full article contains 609 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
