Way to go London!
About bloody time.
I could be wrong but I don’t think Sydney had any regrets.
Ha! I wonder what the pundits will whine about now?
-They only got the Olympics because people hate America.
-But, London has been an American ally in almost everything since the first Gulf War.
-Yeah, but… but… Chirac is a dick.*
Yea! Even more reason to go back to London!
*I give Tucker Carlson’s show on MSNBC a chance, but their second item yesterday was Chirac complaining about English food. WTH?
I think Chirac’s series of comments over the last week may have been enough to cost France the games. The bidding cities aren’t supposed to criticize each other. If Paris had gotten only 2 more votes of the 104 cast it would have caught London. Finland had two voters.
Oh-so-predictable pessimism. Manchester managed to put on the Commonwealth Games with fantastic success, everything on schedule, and all the venues being fully used after the event. Do you really think a velodrome in London is going to sit unused in 2013?
Oh, and regarding the Dome, the Olympics means it finally has a purpose, as the venue for gymnastics & basketball.
Try telling that to the guys associated with the London bid who started mouthing off about how poor the sight lines are for athletics in the Stade de France ! (Looking for a cite, I’ll be back)
This is one more New Yorker checking in to say “woohoo!” and congrats to London. New York City may have really needed the tourism, but I’m sure we can think of something else to get people to visit… 
Bloomberg was just asking to lose this competiton ever since he said “it’ll be a cold cold day in New York before the Olympic ceremonies are held in QUEENS” … and then 2 weeks later moved the plan there!
I wonder how long I should wait before I start putting some of my NYC2012 subway maps on ebay? 
Don’t worry; by 2012, this will all be irrelevant - the glaciers will have scoured London completely off the face of the land.
Too late, someone is already selling packs of 25!
There’s an interesting range of possible contributory reasons for the recent (and decisive) swing in momentum towards the London bid. So far, media pundits have rattled off the following:
– Tony Blair’s distancing himself from Bush and the Iraq war, chiefly with his stances on the Kyoto Treaty and debt relief for Africa, and literally going the extra mile in his bravado stumping for the bid just before the vote in Singapore (before jetting back to host the G8 Conference today). Blair’s political positions may have proved decisive with some African and European voters.
– The French electorate’s recent rejection of the proposed EU constitution. This proved to be very unpopular with many other Europeans who had already ratified it in their elections (who saw it as a slap in the face), and revived tensions over associated issues such as French refusal to restructure (reform, really) agricultural subsidies (which disproportionately benefit French farmers) and French political presumptuousness in general (as a de facto co-leader, with Germany, of “Europe”).
– Jacques Chirac shooting his mouth off in a semi-private moment with Vladimir Putin re. British and Finnish cuisine. I have no way of knowing how the two Finns cast their votes, but I can tell you that there’s no great love lost between Finland and their often overbearing neighbor to the east, and that Putin’s authoritarian and perhaps even irredentist streak is being viewed with increasing alarm in Eastern Europe – the same Eastern European countries that have broken free of Russian domination, joined the EU and NATO, and supported the US in Iraq.
– Jacques Chirac addressing the IOC in his final speech to them – in French. Apparently this was not well-received and sent all the wrong signals about France’s welcoming the world, being accomodating, etc.
– The London bid representing a genuine plan for urban renewal and transformation of the East End; the strength of the bid presentation and the likeable personalities associated with the London contingent; and the undeniable enthusiasm and popularity of the London bid (and the involved costs and burdens) with Londoners and Brits (as opposed to the tepid support for the NYC bid by New Yorkers).
Another possible factor (I haven’t heard this one in the media, so it may be off base) is that the USA has been a frequent host in recent decades (Lake Placid Winter Games in '80; LA Summer Games in '84; Atlanta Summer Games in '92), so there’s less urgency that it go to yet another 'Merkin city so soon. Plus there’s the time zone thing.
:smack:
The Atlanta Games were in '96, not '92. And I completely forgot about the 2002 Salt Lake City Games! :o :smack:
So, no, we didn’t really need or deserve them again so soon.
He said Merkin. Hehehehehehehehe.
Bollocks!
I hope that I’m living somewhere else other than London (where I have lived for 40 of my 45 years on this planet) - or, more likely, dead - by the time 2012 comes around. I was hoping and praying that the IOC would be sensible enough to give the games to Paris. Or Madrid. Or anyone else but London!
Mark my words: the facilities will end up costing 164 (approx.) times the original estimates - and my effing Council Tax bill will end up being £48 million a month to pay for them; they will not all be provided as stated (some sports being combined with others, some being shifted to existing, crappy venues); of those that are, some will not be ready by the start of the games, like Athens; during the games themselves, the whole of the eastern side of London will come to a complete standstill and there will be more muggings, street robberies and general criminality than at any other Olympic games in history, modern or ancient.
Talking of velodromes, Gorillaman: there used to be a lovely concrete one in Paddington Recreation Ground, off Kilburn Park Road - it’s now a block of flats. That’s the priority around here.
Not that I’m cynical or anything …
Congratulations London. Innit.
Still a few whingers, but generally speaking no regrets.
When Sydney won the bid in 1993, there was elation. That was a good feeling that will be flooding London right now. After that wore off, there was the realisation that it was going to be a long wait. For a couple of years, we didn’t hear much. Then things started speeding up, and there was a lot of negativity, especially aimed at the perceived arrogance of SOCOG and its unlovable CEO, whose name thankfully escapes me now. The negativity picked up a lot of momentum, and at some points it seemed like every single person I spoke to was vowing to get outta Dodge for the two weeks. A lot of this rubbed off on me, and when 2000 rolled around, I was very ‘meh’ and pretty cynical about the whole exercise. Then it started getting closer. In the weeks and days before the games began, the optimism returned to the city. Instead of buying air tickets out of town, Sydneysiders were fighting over event tickets.
The games themselves were a total buzz. Everybody seemed to be walking around smiling. The traffic gridlock never happened (best traffic I’ve ever seen in Sydney), the drunken/violent crowd incidents didn’t seem to happen, the trains even ran on time. The tiresome shouts of Aussie! Aussie Aussie! aside, it was great fun just going down to the Quay and milling around. Foreign tourists asking for directions were mobbed by locals wanting to help. I didn’t officially volunteer, but one day I ended up directing crowds at Circular Quay station because the woman doing it was overwhelmed by the numbers (and not one person told me to sod off!). I wasn’t alone - everybody seemed to be doing stuff like that. It was a great coupla weeks - and I even scored a babelicious girlfriend out of it (and we’re still together ).
Quite glad we had the games. London should be too.
Advice to London and Londoners:
- Stay in town. You’ll kick yourself later if you miss it.
- It’d be great if the venues are small and widely scattered. The one negative legacy of Sydney’s games is that Olympic Park, whilst certainly impressive, is way too big and barren, It looks a bit Soviet in its grand emptiness.
- When the flame is extinguished at the end of the fortnight, show’s over. Deal. Go back to your lives. There was nothing worse in Sydney than the tragics who insisted on wearing their volunteer shirts six months later.
I would imagine that Mets owner Fred Wilpon is breathing a sigh of relief now. He can continue with his plan to make the new Shea look like Ebbets Field without having to accommodate the Olympics.
Also, there’s again no danger of actual athletic competition happening inside Shea Stadium now. 
(Kidding, Mets fans!)
How very English of you…“Why do we need a modern facility, with their fancy wood surfaces and everything? What’s wrong with this chunk of concrete? Tssk.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/olympics_2012/3241188.stm
Some new venuews, including the stadium, are being built in an Olympic Park-type development. However, plenty are using existing venues, including several of the royal parks, Horseguard’s Parade, Lord’s, Wimbledon, etc. And the football is journeying to Scotland, Wales and northern England.
For some reason, the thought of beach volleyball in London made me laugh. I guess it’s no more absurd than having it in any other city of size, but in my mind, it just doesn’t compute easily.
It’s the mountain biking in Essex that I struggle to visualise - the highest point in the county is under 500ft.
Yes, it would have been fantastic if the track at Paddington Rec. had been modernised. But I (an Irishman, by the way: doesn’t my name give it away?) was complaning that the facility was removed completely. No bugger ever used it, even though it was one of only 2 cycle tracks in the entire city. (Is the one at Herne Hill still there?)
There is already one - modern, indoor, wooden - cycle track in the UK, in Manchester. And very snazzy it is, too. It would have been perfect for the Olympics. What the hell are we going to do with two?
Has anyone said the words “White Elephant” yet?
I have just seen that the latest estimate for the rise in my Council Tax to pay for all this shite is “£20 a year”. Bollocks: it’ll be £2,000 by the time the accountants have added their zeros.
Yes, the Manchester one is fantastic. But are you really saying that a London one won’t see use? And I doubt modernising a concrete one would be viable compared to a new-build fully designed to accomodate the needs of the Olympics. (And yes, I know you’re Irish, hence my comment )
Heh heh, I just posted that exact sum at Nads.