London 2012: Best Games Ever beating Sydney !

[Blacksheep]

and the praise that the various different sporting bodies, the athletes from each nation, and the IOC for the support of British fans for every single competitor even when competing against a member of Team GB confirms that this comment that overall somehow nationalistic pride superseded the welcome we gave to all competitors is utter drivel.

Clearly you weren't in the UK to watch the games, but raises the question of whether you even watched the games?

[Rob2012]

The opening post could have gone in the verdicts thread really, but it's of course nice to hear such things from journalists who also covered Sydney.

Athensfan, you don't get a starchitect to design your entire Olympic Park and spend 5% of your GDP on your Games if you're hosting a "self-forgetful" Games (although I suppose you could argue Athens "forgot" they were hosting it until late 2001). It's amazing quite how much of a blind-spot you have at times!

It's somewhat strange that you take this thread as evidence to back up your spurious and slightly condescending argument, yet have not taken into account posts by Mainad, Arwebb, myself and many others who are of the opinion that as long as you enjoyed London, that's fine. We "do" care what the World thinks, of course we do, but that's quite different from the condescending picture you're describing. London's Games were self-referential, so were Sydney's, Athens' (yup indeed!), and Beijing's and so will be Brazil's.

[Blacksheep]

I watched the cycling Time Trial and every 61 competitor (37men, 24women) of every nationality were given a massive roar as they went past, people belowing support irrespective of nationality.

Even after Wiggens had past, the crowds remained for the last cyclist Cancellara even though he was slower and had suffered injury to cheer him on - incidently chasing down a TeamGB cyclist.

This was the norm for all events

If this is not welcoming for every competitor (and for fans from around the world) I'd be interested to know what is.

[Citius Altius Fortius]

I edited this post of mine, since I don't want that one of my posts is in this thread...

[Athensfan]

My opinion is unaltered. I do not find others' misrepresentation of my own position persuasive.

[baron-pierreIV]

People - and volunteers - went out of their way to welcome other nationalities and I heard lots of people chatting on the tube and in the streets to people from different countries, offering help and support or just saying 'good on you' and 'welcome to London'.

That's NOT unique to these Games. R u telling me the citizens of OTHER host cities were less welcoming and enthusiastic? PLEASE. London is just the freshest in memory; and perhaps there were greater numbers of people in LOCOG uniforms than in previous Games. Were they less welcoming in Salt Lake? In Vancouver? In Sydney? In Atlanta? So this is NOT a unique quality of these Games.

[markun]

That's NOT unique to these Games. R u telling me the citizens of OTHER host cities were less welcoming and enthusiastic? PLEASE. London is just the freshest in memory; and perhaps there were greater numbers of people in LOCOG uniforms than in previous Games. Were they less welcoming in Salt Lake? In Vancouver? In Sydney? In Atlanta? So this is NOT a unique quality of these Games.

Please just read what I actually wrote. I didn't say this was unique or that anywhere else was less welcoming and enthusiastic.

I was was writing in response to Athensfan who suggested that other cities focussed more on welcoming others which simply isn't true when the welcome we extended others was warm and sincere.

[FDLondon]

Have you ever heard a bunch of British guys shouting 'come on Liechtenstein!' and 'We love you Guatemala?' Because that's what I heard!

The knowlegeable, passionate and supportive - regardless of nationality - crowds is one reason why parallels have been drawn with Lillehammer.

One of my funniest bit of the Games as a spectator was at the beach volleyball where the USA were playing the Czech Republic and beating them quite comprehensively. A group of US fans started a U S A chant when the commentator asked who was from the USA. The cheer for those there from the Czech Republic was smaller so the next time the USA chant went up, a group of British lads started the rest of the stadium in a football-style chant - "Czeeeeeeeeeeeeech Republic! Czech Republic! Czech Republic" Very good humoured and a nice bit of competitive chanting!

Knowledgable? Not always! But definitely enthusiastic and willing to be educated!

That's NOT unique to these Games. R u telling me the citizens of OTHER host cities were less welcoming and enthusiastic? PLEASE.

No, as one of the IOC delegates told me on Opening Ceremony night, it's always the volunteers that make the Games. What was unusual in London was the behaviour of other non-volunteer Londoners. London is a very crowded city where personal space is minimal on transport etc. The standard behaviour is to withdraw into yourself; making eye contact with a stranger in London is normally seen as odd. Smiling and, god forbid, starting a conversation would generally be classed as deviant behaviour! So while strangers being friendly and helpful isn't a unique experience at the Games; it's a pretty unusual experience in London!

[Alexjc]

OoooKaaaaay...

Here's my list of ranking...Congrats to Blighty' you've bumped of Barcelona as my number one!

I'll openly admit I absolutley disliked the Opening Ceremony...I just didn't get it! So I was set up in a bad mood for the first couple of days but then I noticed the MASSIVE spectator participation and though 'this will be the one'...And it was.

And then the Closing Ceremony blasted it into History as the Best Games Ever!

1. London '12

2. Barcelona '92

3. Sydney '00

4. Los Angeles '84

5. Athens '04

6. Beijing '08

7. Seoul '88

8. Atlanta '96

[Juso]

No, its just that Australians are so boastful, its nice to know the old country got it so right

and if you'd use just a little thought, the reason the opinions of Australians were regarded highly because Sydney (in Australia) was previously considered the one to beat.

If it had been Beijing, it would have been the opinions of the Chinese

If Athens, the thoughts of the Greeks

If Atlanta, the thoughts of the Americans

How typically arrogant

Australians are so boastful because, whilst usually being just a spec on the scale of world affair, they have done something that no other olympic host country has ever been able to do, turn its success in sydney into an industry. Previously the olympic consulting bandwagon was a four year cycle with each new ocog taking over the consulting jobs next time.

12 years on look how many australian consultants and contractors worked on the London games, Australia has every right to be proud of this achievement, and demand for their services is evidence that sydney was the gold standard from operationally staging a modern, effective games. That may very well have been surpassed by London, great, but if you consider the level of australian involvement I think it is fair to say that Australians can take some small part of pride in the success of london, not bad for a country of only 19 million people...

[Blacksheep]

Australians are so boastful because, whilst usually being just a spec on the scale of world affair, they have done something that no other olympic host country has ever been able to do, turn its success in sydney into an industry. Previously the olympic consulting bandwagon was a four year cycle with each new ocog taking over the consulting jobs next time.

12 years on look how many australian consultants and contractors worked on the London games, Australia has every right to be proud of this achievement, and demand for their services is evidence that sydney was the gold standard from operationally staging a modern, effective games. That may very well have been surpassed by London, great, but if you consider the level of australian involvement I think it is fair to say that Australians can take some small part of pride in the success of london, not bad for a country of only 19 million people...

Yes, I agree, there is always a need for bar staff over in London. Trust the Aussies to try to take undeserved credit.

The Aussie consultants were not given the stadium gig having made a disaster of Wembley for which they were sued.

And the Brits have now been approached to advise on Sochi and Rio

[bomberguy]

I enjoy these kind of threads, always interesting reading people's opinion on such topics.

I will write a more in depth opinion, but just quickly London was the 2nd Games I have attended in person, Beijing being the first. So I guess I have some kind of perspective from being there.

I rank London ahead of Beijing. My reasoning:

- While venues were more spectacular in Beijing (Bird's Nest the most amazing stadium to look at in the world), I was more impressed with London's venues in another sense. The Olympic Stadium was incredible in the fact that one night I was sitting in the back row of the top tier and I still thought the view was great. The stadium was not that big and no seat was too far from the action. The use of temporary stadiums is a huge positive and will not leave the OP as a white elephant with a bunch of stadiums that never get used. This was the pinnacle for tennis at an Olympics with the use of Wimbledon, Horse Guards Parade was insane, the Copper Box felt like you were literally sitting on top of the Handball and the Velodrome just blew my socks off. The best Track Cycling stadium in the world.

- Transport and ease of access to venues was better in London compared to Beijing.

- The Olympic Park. Comparing London with Beijing is like chalk and cheese. Where Beijing's OP felt a little soulless, London's OP had an intense atmosphere every single time I was in there.

- Volunteers are hard to compare. While London's were great, I found the volunteers in Beijing also helpful, enthusiastic and happy.

- As has been mentioned many times, the crowds in London were simply astounding. Every session I went to (32 events) was basically full and the crowd were enthusiastic and cheered like crazy.

I felt I had a better 'Olympic experience' overall in London compared to Beijing. In saying that, Beijing will always be special because it is the first Olympic Games I attended in person.

[Blacksheep]

When you recall that London had the difficult task of following Beijing, whilst Sydney had to follow what is regarded by many as the worst games of the modern era in Atlanta, Sydney had to merely be okay to be regared with delirium - you could see the collective outburst of breath from the IOC that it was not the car crash that Atlanta represented ..... London successfully pulled off the achievement of not being considered inferior to Beijing which most thought was an impossible task.

[Mainad]

When you recall that London had the difficult task of following Beijing, whilst Sydney had to follow what is regarded by many as the worst games of the modern era in Atlanta, Sydney had to merely be okay to be regared with delirium - you could see the collective outburst of breath from the IOC that it was not the car crash that Atlanta represented ..... London successfully pulled off the achievement of not being considered inferior to Beijing which most thought was an impossible task.

I think you are being a little too patronising towards Sydney which, by common agreement, was one of the best Games ever!

BTW, why do so many people keep saying that the Atlanta Games were so bad (well they were bad for GB in that we won only 15 medals including just 1 gold, but that's by the by). What was so bad about them?

[Blacksheep]

I think you are being a little too patronising towards Sydney which, by common agreement, was one of the best Games ever!

BTW, why do so many people keep saying that the Atlanta Games were so bad (well they were bad for GB in that we won only 15 medals including just 1 gold, but that's by the by). What was so bad about them?

They were considered the worst games of the modern era, ridiculously over commercialised and crass.

It was the only time ever that the former IOC President Joao Havelange, DID NOT say at the end of the games that they were the best games ever ..... all he could summon up was 'Well done, Atlanta' which was being polite and diplomatic. And this was after they'd not given the centenary games to Athens but awarded it to Atlanta who served up an embarassment to the Olympic movement.

I think OCOG members wake up from occasional nightmares muttering Atlanta 96, Atlanta 96

[Juso]

Yes, I agree, there is always a need for bar staff over in London. Trust the Aussies to try to take undeserved credit.

The Aussie consultants were not given the stadium gig having made a disaster of Wembley for which they were sued.

And the Brits have now been approached to advise on Sochi and Rio

I am not going to bite on this crap.... Last time I checked the village was built by an Australian Corporation as was your cauldron that you love so much....

Yes wembely was a fiasco, but what does that have to do with the olympics, multiplex was not involved in the olympics? You guys still seem pretty proud of the new wembely now...

I suggest you do a bit more research into how many australians were involved in LOCOG and the bid process before you start slugging away. That does not make them take the credit, britain delivered the games and delivered it well. I said it is a small part of the credit, nothing more.

Unfortunately Blacksheep, you are starting to sound like so many people from sydney that pissed me off after sydney 2000 that glorified our games beyond comprehension, don't do that with london now. If I can willingly say they were likely the best games in history, you can drop the insecurity and accept that many other olympics were great successes.....

They were considered the worst games of the modern era, ridiculously over commercialised and crass.

It was the only time ever that the former IOC President Joao Havelange, DID NOT say at the end of the games that they were the best games ever ..... all he could summon up was 'Well done, Atlanta' which was being polite and diplomatic. And this was after they'd not given the centenary games to Athens but awarded it to Atlanta who served up an embarassment to the Olympic movement.

I think OCOG members wake up from occasional nightmares muttering Atlanta 96, Atlanta 96

Really Joao Havelange was IOC President in 1996 or ever?.......

[Blacksheep]

I am not going to bite on this crap.... Last time I checked the village was built by an Australian Corporation as was your cauldron that you love so much....

Yes wembely was a fiasco, but what does that have to do with the olympics, multiplex was not involved in the olympics? You guys still seem pretty proud of the new wembely now...

I suggest you do a bit more research into how many australians were involved in LOCOG and the bid process before you start slugging away. That does not make them take the credit, britain delivered the games and delivered it well. I said it is a small part of the credit, nothing more.

Unfortunately Blacksheep, you are starting to sound like so many people from sydney that pissed me off after sydney 2000 that glorified our games beyond comprehension, don't do that with london now. If I can willingly say they were likely the best games in history, you can drop the insecurity and accept that many other olympics were great successes.....

Really Joao Havelange was IOC President in 1996 or ever?.......

Okay then

Maybe YOU should do some research.

The construction of the Olympic Village was by a company called Lend Lease Project Management and Construction, established in 1885 as Bovis, that happens to have an Australian parent company but is run independently

The Olympic cauldron was designed by Thomas Heatherwick of London. The cauldron was made in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. When has North Yorkshire been part of Australia?

Some Australians have provided advice, as have Greeks as have Chinese .... to claim credit for this is a nonsense. Looking at the LOCOG Board, none worked on Sydney - any successful team asks the inside thoughts of previous hosts to avoid repeat errors. And it would happen with the FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup etc

The only crap I hear is coming from you.

p,s. of course it was Samaranch

[Aphrodite007]

Blacksheep, I'm not sure you're representing Brits particularly well here. Everyone has their own Games experiences and preferences, based on a variety of factors. We put on an Olympics that we can be proud of, does it matter if it was the best ever or not? Besides, it is far too early to call London the best ever and we are far too emotionally involved (as is everyone) to make that judgement now. Let's just enjoy what remains of the Olympic buzz without getting into these pissing contests, Sydney was a wonderful Games and gloating makes us look unseemly and is rather un-British.

[Olympic Fan Darcy]

BS you are just embarrassing. You say your not anti Australian but many of your posts aren't exactly nice towards Australia. And yes London was an amazing games but you know where they learnt a lot of that from? Sydney. It is too hard to judge although i tried earlier and still stick to my own opini. You are allowed your own one. But honestly stop arguing with everyone

[paul92]

Oh this is such a stupid discussion.

Everyone has their own opinion, but it's quite obvious that these are the top 5 Olympics:

1. LONDON 2012!!

2. LONDON 2012!!

3. LONDON 2012!!

4. Helsinki 1952 (Great Hungarian football team that year)

5. LONDON 2012!!

_^joke

-But really, I think Blacksheep has simply caught Olympic Fever - which has spread across the UK. We haven't seen an epidemic like this since The Plague. And Olympic Fever is expected to kill a lot lot more.

[Juso]

Is this really necessary? Anyway here it goes: (Apologies to everyone else for the rant)

Lend Lease Project Management and Construction won the olympic village contract based on the experience of its parent (australian) in atlanta and sydney. Guess who were the lead architects, the ones who had the most experience in designing olympic villages and of that global team, the lead architect, among some other aussies, was Australian.

This experience the same reason the british offices of populous, an american company got the contract to design the olympic stadium, as they did mind you in Sydney too, because they have the experience.

The design for London's main stadium was overseen by Brisbane-born Rod Sheard, of populous. I guess we only speak about australian

s designing things in britain when they go wrong ie wembely.

Whilst the cauldron was designed by heatherwick everyone knows that (I think by numerous posts in the Olympic Cauldron thread, it was clear I was very very aware of this - i never said Australians designed the concept btw), FCT Flames from Adelaide developed the burner system and entire electronic control and motion rig and supervised its construction. I never said it was built in Australia...

Moreover this company was responsible for the Sydney, Athens, Doha, Rio and Vancouver's Cauldrons and Sydney and Athens' torches and the rings of fire in the Athens OC.

You can learn more about their involvement in the London Cauldron here

Now to establish my point, whilst no australian was a board director on LOCOG (you wouldn't expect them to as most were consulting rather than provided direct operational roles), Australians were involved heavily in the delivery of London 2012 in the following areas:

• David Higgins, an expat living in london, had significant involvement in the planning and construction of Sydney's Aquatic Centre and OV, he was the head of the ODA in london for the first five years, if there is a more active logistical role than that outside of an OCOG chief in an olympic games I dont know what is.
  
• 8 of the 29 competition venues at London 2012 were run by Australian Venue Managers, the next closest international contribution was two US managers.
  
• 
  

  Neil Fergus, a security planner for Sydney 2000 with a background in government intelligence and security, began advising London in 2006

  
  

• 
  

  LOCOG's transport planning is largely being guided by Australian-based staff of the US consulting company Parsons Brinckerhoff, which has built on the expertise it developed in Sydney 2000.

  
  

• 
  

  One of Seb Coe's key speechwriters is australian.

  
  

• 
  

  Michael Pirrie, an Australian, was seb coe's executive assistant and was involved in the London 2012 since the bid team was formed in 2003.

  
  

• 
  

  The live sites around london are being co-ordinated by an Australian, who got her experience running the very first olympic live sites in sydney.

  
  

• 
  

  GForce TV, an Australian Company developed the underwater camera system being used in the Aquatic Centre and its staff operate the specialised cameras, inlcuding the Dive cam in the venue.

  
  

• 
  

  Stephen

  
  

  Newport, who ran the netball and hockey centre for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and then oversaw training venues for that year's Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, is now the venue general manager for the ExCel Centre.

  
  

• 
  

  Furthermore, t

  
  

  he five arenas at the ExCel centre will be the busiest venue in Olympic history, with more staff and more athletes than even the main stadium. Five of the 22 people in Newport's senior management team are Australians, as are the heads of several of its specialist functions such as the technology manager Martin Banfield and Peter Cussell, who is in charge of spectator services.

  
  

• 
  

  Whilst Australian production companies DAE and Spektak are not involved in these games, there was an australian company consulting on the Sound System for the opening Ceremony.

  
  

• 
  

  Jeremy Edwards, another Sydney 2000 veteran, at the equestrian centre in Greenwich Park. Shooting, water polo, volleyball, football and road cycling are among the other events whose venues will be directed by Australians.

  
  

General Contracts:

• 
  

  The contracts won in London range from accountants who specialise in estimating the cost of the Games to human resources experts to dozens of logistical niches ranging from security to cleaning and furniture supplies.

  
  

• 
  

  The Melbourne-based Spotless Group will have 1800 people providing cleaning, housekeeping, linen and laundry services for the Olympic Park, athletes' village and other sites (Of course out of their UK Offices).

  
  

• 
  

  Dandenong manufacturer Advanced Polymer Technology has made the artificial turf for the hockey pitch.

  
  

Dominant Source:http://www.theaustra...6-1226357792440

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

An interesting quote from the referenced article:

"Neil Fergus, the security consultant, believes the Australian role will slide after London. "Nobody has seriously challenged the Australians since Sydney. Athens had plenty of problems and the [Chinese Government] officials who did Beijing are not exactly going around the world selling their skills so that means some Australians have had a very good run for 12 years. After London there will be a good number of Brits out there selling their skills around the world but competition is not a bad thing - the Games need an injection of fresh blood.

The pool of experienced Australians is not getting bigger and some of the more important people at Sydney are getting towards the end of their careers. We have had a good run but people are getting tired." Fergus points out that the British will have several more chances to stake their claim in the industry when they host the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, the 2015 rugby world cup and 2017 world athletics titles."

================================

"Anthony Bijkerk, a Dutch historian who heads the International Society of Olympic Historians, says this Australian influence in 2012 is a break with Olympic history. "Traditionally each host city did it all by themselves," he says. "Even the smallest hosts like Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956) did it on their own. That was the norm right up to Sydney, which still mostly did it by themselves."

================================

"Richard Cashman, a historian at the University of Technology in Sydney who specialises in the Olympics, says the 2000 Games "marked a change in the role of international expertise in the Olympics. Before Sydney, knowledge transfer was pretty unsophisticated. The organisers of the next Games just sent along some people to literally look over the shoulders of the officials staging the current Games.

People realised that the whole thing had become so complex and specialised that instead of trying to reinvent the wheel every four years the smartest thing was to hire people who had already developed that expertise. And the success of the Sydney Games meant that we suddenly had this new export industry because our reputation for having the skills to hold a great Olympics became this unanticipated legacy of the Games. Australia became the first country to benefit from an international Olympic 'caravan', which has travelled the world since then, operating successfully at all sorts of Games."

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Finally, it is universally acknowledged that Sydney's organisational model is the blueprint for modern olympics, so much so that "a

fter the success of 2000, the International Olympic Committee bought the intellectual property rights from Sydney's organising committee, SOCOG, and began what it now terms a knowledge-transfer program."http://m.theage.com....0722-1ht50.html"

The legislation based implementation of the Games infastructure in London is even more influenced by sydney than previous games have been:

• Legislative Authority given to OCOG and protecting the sydney 2000/london 2012 brand by law in a specific act of parliament.
  
• Creation of the ODA, directly modelled after Sydney's Olympic Co-ordination Authority.
  
• Various other organisation and logistical structures, including a similar security hierarchy.
  

And yes you are absolutely right, LOCOG's staff are consulting to Rio and Sochi as are less and less australians, the torch is being passed on as it should.

But back to your attacks, I never claimed that Australian's should take credit for the success of London, how proposterous. I only said that they should also take a small part of pride in the success.

Considering the above involvement and the lasting effect of the sydney 2000 model, do you really think that is unjustified?

I again say I thought that London 2012 was probably the best ever, I have said that from the start and I again say, that if I can admit that then you can stop slogging every other olympics because of wanting to prove london is great, London was great, but so were other olympics.. I am not trying to undermine british success in london, i am trying to show that other games were successful hence the heavy involvement of people from past games, in this case namely sydney...

[Kenadian]

The Games are like children. They all have their joys and their problems and I don't pick favourites.

If you want to go around with a bumper sticker that says 'happy and glorious' or 'most exceptional' or 'wonderful, dream', then by all means, go ahead. But I love each Olympiad for what it is and the experiences and moments they bring into my life.

[paul92]

Is this really necessary? Anyway here it goes: (Apologies to everyone else for the rant)

So I don't have the time, nor desire to read all of that - but I'm just going to go ahead and presume you agree with Blacksheep.

[Juso]

So I don't have the time, nor desire to read all of that - but I'm just going to go ahead and presume you agree with Blacksheep.

LOL fair enough...... and completely respect your time and decision not to read, hence the disclaimer, I just do not appreciate being told that I do not know what I am talking about...

[nykfan845]

Jesus, it seems like these Olympics have let out all the loonies. Someone wrangle Blacksheep and send him back to the bin, please?