There is no doubting that these Olympics games will live long in the memory of many in Great Britain (or is that now GB?).
Many will judge the games from the abundance of memories offered by watching supreme athletes achieve their dreams up close. It is nothing short of inspiring.
Many will judge the games by the medal haul for Team GB.
Many will judge the games from an efficiency perspective because the games appear to have been delivered with such competence (despite a few ticket grumbles along the way).
However, rightly or wrongly, many will judge the games from a financial perspective. When GB makes an investment of £9 billion to host the games, it seems completely fair that many will judge the games by what the financial return was. Especially when you consider only one of the last 8 cities to host the Olympic Games turned a profit.
I have been fortunate enough to visit Sydney and see the ghost town that is the former Olympic Park (apart from a handful of sporting events each year) and we need only look at Athens to see the legacy that the games left on Greece.
Having seen up close a number of Olympic events in London, I came away thinking that the organisers had missed a trick somewhat. When there are millions lining the streets for the cycling and triathlon and no rights have been sold to ‘officially’ sell food and drink, questions start to form and head scratching will begin. Damn it, I would have bought a Team GB t-shirt, hat, flag and anything else tacky but......the merchandise stalls were nowhere to be seen. Could you imagine the opportunity that this brings not being maximised at a Premier League football match? Really disappointingly……we had 7 years to prepare for this.
I really do hope that when all the pennies have been counted, we don't regret not doing more to have maximised our once in a lifetime opportunity and covered our costs. It will all just lead to political sparing and nothing cheapens a memory so quickly like ‘those lot’ bickering at Westminster.
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