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London’s Countdown to 2012 Begins With Questions
By PETER BERLIN
Published: August 24, 2008
BEIJING — If there were any doubts that the 2012 Olympics in London would be different from those in Beijing, they vanished as soon as the mayor of London appeared during the closing ceremony Sunday night.
The mayor, Boris Johnson, appeared after Guo Jinlong, his Beijing counterpart, and Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, had given speeches.
Guo and Rogge were thin, erect and serious, encased in creased dark suits. Johnson shambled out, his middle button undone, a hand in his pocket. He waved, pointed, pumped his fist and grinned: a naughty schoolboy out with the grown-ups.
Johnson was there for one of the many rituals built into the Games. Guo passed the Olympic flag to Rogge, who passed it to Johnson — a relay symbolizing the passing of the Olympics from one city to another.
How well London will carry that flag is a question its representatives have found themselves asked repeatedly over the last two weeks.
What can they do to follow this no-expenses-spared Olympics, with its spectacular arenas, clockwork organization and attention to detail? The first problem for London is simply one of cash. Estimates for the cost of the Beijing Games, apart from the Beijing organizing committee’s operating budget, start at $40 billion. And that does not account for the difference in labor costs, which are considerably lower in China than they will be in London.
Everyone involved with the London Games is clear on their numbers: a $3.7 billion operating budget for the organizing committee; a $17.2 billion budget for building everything. For London, the trap is to avoid being accused of wasting money on a short-lived event, while not being seen as skimping.
“It is unlikely that you will see a Games of this size and scope and stature ever again,” Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the London committee, said at a news conference.
The I.O.C. is caught in the same trap. This was its party, and China spent $40 billion on it. Yet the I.O.C. can hardly gloat about how much money went into an event that lasts just 17 days.
The I.O.C.’s solution is to stress what the Games leave behind.
Beijing is a huge, fast-growing and even faster-modernizing city that was short of sports venues. The Games will leave a legacy of arenas here.
That is not a legacy London needs. It has two 80,000-seat venues — Wembley and Twickenham — and a host of other sports venues.
“Our priority is to leave a legacy for the community,” Coe said. “Our message has been clear and unambiguous: to use the London Games to drive the participation in Olympic sports.
“No Games has produced a sustainable shift in participation.”
The London organizers say that the majority of the city’s Olympic venues already exist. They include Wembley and Wimbledon for tennis. Lord’s Cricket Ground will have to be tweaked for archery. Earl’s Court, which will house volleyball, is an exhibition hall, not a sports arena, and parts of it date from the late 1930s. Greenwich Park, site of the equestrian events; Hyde Park, where the triathlon will be held; and Regent’s Park, the road cycling venue, are existing venues only in the sense that the parks are already there. The same goes for Horse Guards Parade, a rather surreal choice to host beach volleyball.
Wembley and the North Greenwich Arena, which will house badminton, are reminders of how badly planning in London has often gone wrong in recent years. Both were delivered late and massively over budget. The North Greenwich Arena, originally the Millennium Dome, cost an estimated $1.9 billion. Wembley was recently rebuilt. It was scheduled for completion in 2006 but opened in 2007 and cost $1.5 billion.
Despite the huge budgets, a modern Olympics depends heavily on those who provide their labor for free. One of the defining elements in Beijing has been the legions of young volunteers.
Paul Deighton, the chief executive of the London Olympic committee, said he could not hope to duplicate their numbers.
“One of the great strengths of China is the ability to mobilize so many resources and people,” he said. “We will give the individuals bigger roles and more independence. That is a model that works best for the British.”
The volunteers in Beijing have been more than matched in numbers by the security forces. Terrorism is a shadow that hangs over any mass event. Beijing has not seen terrorist attacks in recent years, but London has — notably on July 7, 2005, the day after London won the right to host the Games.
London, Coe said, “is a huge, global, capital city. There will be a balance. The Games must be enjoyable, and the city will not be locked down.”
The police and soldiers were again everywhere in Beijing on Sunday. While the show put on by the hosts Sunday night was not an epic narrative like the opening ceremony, it was still spectacular, huge and, except for the athletes’ entry, meticulously choreographed.
Then the British appeared, with a dance skit including a London bus and members of three dance companies. Clearly, they were playing far from home, with limited resources. Even so, it looked chaotic and under-rehearsed.
Jimmy Page almost rescued the moment, with a demonstration of the simple power of the electric guitar. David Beckham received what may have been the biggest cheer for any non-Chinese athlete at the Olympics, just for kicking one soccer ball toward the crowd.
It was a powerful demonstration of how to get a lot from a little.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/sports/olympics/25london.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
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本来想翻译的,但发现自己实力不够,连题目都不会翻。所以只转载出来,希望有高手可以帮帮忙。 |
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