It all started almost by accident. According to many, due to the gaffes of then French President Jacques Chirac (who defined English food as the worst in the world after Finnish food), according to some, among them the mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoe, for plots and corruption among the members of the IOC. Fact is that on 23 October 2005 it was not the very favorite Paris to be awarded the organization of the 30th modern Olympics but London, which on 27 July will thus become the first city in the world to have hosted three (in 1908 and 1948).
Leaving aside the wounded pride of the arrogant transalpines, the most plausible version, (more or less legitimate) power games aside, is that it was the great ability of the then British premier Tony Blair was decisive (who was re-elected for a third term after his assignment) in building the foundations for an undertaking that seemed to border on the impossible, for a city of 12 million inhabitants with an evident lack of adequate sports facilities.
It won't be the most opulent (so far 11 billion pounds spent, about 13 billion euros, nothing compared to the 40 billion euros of the pharaonic edition of Beijing 2008), and not even the most exotic one (we can swear it will be Rio de Janeiro in 4 years) but the one in London will certainly be the greener and more sustainable Olympics. And above all the one that will leave something important and lasting as a legacy to the city, in particular to its depressing south-eastern periphery, which will host the Olympic Village and various facilities and has been completely re-evaluated also in future projections. Legacy, the same Olympic slogan goes.
As also recalled by the Olympian of Moscow '80 and Los Angeles '84 in the 1.500 meters, and president of LOCOG (Organizing Committee of London 2012) Lord Sebastian Coe, to justify an expense that to many seemed excessive, especially if one considers that the investment has more than quadrupled compared to the initial estimate (2,4 billion pounds): “The cost has risen – explained the Baron, in the past also MP for the Conservative Party – why 70% of the money was spent on land and waterway remediation in that area of East London that we recovered to create the Olympic Park. It was a great investment for the future”.
To be precise, the Olympic Park is located in Stratford: two hundred and fifty hectares of greenery donated to a notoriously degraded neighborhood in the City, where the Village for athletes will also be built. Ready, too, to be intelligently exploited: at the end of the 15 Olympic days, during which it will have hosted over 17 people, it will become a residential center with 3.500 apartments. Actually it already is: it has already been resold for over a billion pounds to a major property group.
Heritage, therefore, but also lightness. Like that of the Olympic Stadium: nothing to do with the pharaonic Bird's Nest in Beijing, but simple and functional, and above all already designed for later. The arena that will host the inaugural ceremony on the 27th evening and then the athletics competitions has in fact an essential design, and at the end of the Games it will become West Ham's new stadiumEnglish Premier League football club reducing its capacity from the current 80 to 50 seats.
However, the cost of the plant turned out to be higher than the Beijing bird's nest: 500 million pounds against 270. Because in addition to functionality and "legacy", this is also the Olympics of sustainability: to minimize the release of greenhouse gases related to the production and transport of materials, the stadium was built with the most advanced ecological technologies, and some services (bars, shops, information points) have been moved outside to make the structure more agile.
Despite its essentiality and its recyclability, the Olympic has received many unsuspected criticisms. The Times even called it "tragically unexciting", and comparing the different architectures, he hypothesized Beijing 2008 as an “indicator of cunning of the East” and London 2012 “of the decline of the West”.
But the reality is that the British seem to have paid attention to the point, taking the opportunity of the event to give a – albeit expensive – a fix to a city of 12 million inhabitants. This is why, in addition to the expenses for the other facilities (from the bright VeloPark, which will be recycled into the arena for volleyball and basketball, to the futuristic Aquatic Center, costing 250 million pounds), a good part of the investment was dedicated to the transport network. Not that the London Tube was bad, but the 4 million visitors during the Olympics, to be added to the infinite population of the City, were a factor that worried the IOC a lot.
The result is now so amazing that the total cost of the interventions is one of the "hidden" expenses of the Games: there is talk of about 6 billion pounds, to definitively provide London with a mobility worthy of the twenty-first century. With even some ad hoc ideas, such as the “Olympic Javelin”, ultra-fast train service, entrusted to the Hitachi bullet trains, which will connect the various competition venues in no time. A cable car has even sprung up across the Thames, costing her alone 25 million pounds: it's the Thames Gateway Cable Car, a carriage suspended 50 meters above sea level linking the Greenwich peninsula and the Royal Docks, capable of carrying 2.500 passengers every hour between the O2 Arena, venue for gymnastics competitions, and the ExCel exhibition centre, which with its 13 sports hosts the largest number of competitions outside the Olympic Park complex (for example example, fencing, boxing and judo).
But will all these investments, in addition to bequeathing to Londoners an improvement in the quality of life, will they also have an economic return? First of all, of the 11 billion pounds, "only" 9 come from public coffers, while the rest is already entirely the work of private financing, a combination of sponsorships, merchandising and ticket sales. Already, ticket sales are a non-secondary item of the Olympic industry: London 2012 presents itself from this point of view as a record-breaking edition. In fact, they range from the 2.012 pounds needed for a seat at the opening ceremony (the most expensive event), to the 725 pounds to attend the eagerly awaited final of the 100m athletics, to the 450 for the gymnastics, swimming and diving competitions, to 425 for basketball.
To understand the return, just give an example: an opening ceremony armchair costs £4.500, and can't even be purchased individually. Companies interested in distributing VIP seats among their customers must necessarily purchase a block of 10, and are also forced to book the closing ceremony and 4 other top-level appointments. Total cost: 270 thousand pounds. Although, to tell the truth, it would seem that there has been a great deal of chaos on the issue of tickets, and that many are still unsold, which could make the fortune of the scalpers and undermine an overall good organization so far.
In any case, television and advertising will take care of returning a large part of the money: it is estimated that the two weeks of competitions will attract aglobal audience of 4 billion people, which in terms of advertising exposure could be worth up to 5 billion pounds for the organizing country.
And then, the turnover. The Olympics, as we know, are huge business, a great opportunity for everyone. Research by Visa Europe has estimated that there will be an increase in economic output equal to £1,21 billion: the economic agents of the companies will earn the most streets of the center (210 million, 262 million euros), the hotel industry (138 million, 172 million euros), supermarkets (88 million, 109 million euros), various entertainments (46 million, 57 million euros) and the tourism sector (46 million, 57 million euros). Most importantly, the revenue from consumer spending will amount to around £804 million, around €1 billion, and will allow to generate 5,33 billion pounds in the three-year period 2013-2015. The Olympics of inheritance, in fact.
