British Olympic Association slams Government's post-Games planning 07/07/2009 |
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London put a commitment to a legacy of facilities and sports participation at the centre of its bid for the 2012 Games but Hunt told The Daily Telegraph that the promises may go unfulfilled.
Hunt is concerned that the sporting facilities in the Olympic Park will not be able to host elite competition after the Games, and fears that the Government's participation promises will not be met.
"We are interested in both the legacy of the park and participation element. There are some good individual initiatives but nothing has been drawn together. Time is running out to get this right. I think we have a year, at the most, to get this right and get a tangible benefit from the Olympics," he said.
On the park, Hunt's priority is to make sure elite sport is at the heart of all of the venues including the main stadium, which could host a school as its main tenant rather than a sport.
A new company has been established to run the facilities but is yet to take control of the project, and Hunt wants elite sport as the centrepiece.
"A lot of the plans that have been put together are excellent but the sporting part is missing. I am hearing rumours that the Olympic Park may not even be called 'Olympic'. Were that to happen all the emotional and psychological buy-in the public have would evaporate," he said.
"It has to be the Olympic Park, that makes it a sporting home for the country. For certain sports it will become a key location such as swimming who have done some great planning. Athletics, hockey and cycling all want a true legacy in the park.
"There is a need for these facilities to be in London and they should be the best in the country if not Europe come 2012, and we need to use these to attract and drive European and international competition in London."
Hunt supports suggestions that the stadium should retain at least 50,000 seats rather than 25,000 so it can host world-class events, and will resist attempts to prioritise community over elite use.
"The money that will be spent converting it from a 80,000 to 25,000 is a serious amount of capital, but what does that look like as an operating cost for the stadium, and should we be more ambitious about what the stadium can be used for in terms of bringing international competition to this country?"
On the participation legacy Hunt is highly critical of the Government, saying there is a lack of clear policy and casting doubt on the pledge to get two million more people "physically active", only one million of whom will have to actually play a sport.
"To me it looks like there are some good initiatives but there are lots of arguments around how participation is counted and that all looks very grey to me. We need to know how we can genuinely measure an increase in sporting participation as a result of the Olympics.
"We need more than initiatives, we need policy that clearly sets out and underpins the agenda. I am unclear what the policies are that will drive increased sports participation and get us back to Seb Coe's 2005 promise to use the power of the Games to inspire young people to choose sport. That is policy driven and I do not think that has been thought through."
(Source: telegraph.co.uk)
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