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Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, said he remained upbeat about preparations for the 2012 Games despite Britain’s economic woes, which have prompted proposals for deep budget cuts by its government. Coe said his organizing committee, which is not a government agency, had raised enough money to keep preparations going at full speed.
Tuesday will mark two years until the start of the Games, and Coe said the committee had raised more than $926 million in domestic sponsorships, a huge stride toward the goal of just over $1 billion.
Ticket sales, which have not yet begun, are expected to provide most of the rest of the $3 billion budget.
“We’re in a good position,” Coe said in a conference call from London. “Infrastructure and revenuewise, we’re in very good shape. It shows the confidence of the British people in what we’re doing.”
Coe said he was proud of the redevelopment of East London, where the Olympic park area has been built in a previously blighted area, and of the 10,500 jobs he said were created by the park project.
“The Olympic project is as valid today as the economy is at a low ebb as it was when we won the bid and the economy was at a high-water mark, and I would argue that it is even more important now,” he said. “It was always our goal to deliver a sustainable and responsibly delivered Games. That hasn’t changed.”
The two-years-to-go mark will be commemorated in London next week with a long list of cultural events, many of which will be sponsored by the oil giant BP.
Coe reaffirmed the organizing committee’s partnership with the embattled oil company, which has been a major sponsor.
BP’s involvement has not been a major issue for the International Olympic Committee, whose coordination commission recently visited and highlighted transportation as the major area for concern in traffic-clogged London.
Coe said that organizers understood the complexity of moving large numbers of people around a congested city and that he believed they had a good transportation plan in development.
Coe described the two years before the Games as equivalent to “the killing zone of the 800,” the race in which he won two Olympic silver medals. (He is a two-time gold medalist in the 1,500 meters.) “This is the business end of the race,” he said. “You don’t want to make any mistakes. You need to be alert. There can be no complacency.”
But Coe said he had no major areas of concern about delivering everything his bid committee promised for the 2012 Games.
“I broke 13 world records, and I don’t intend to break the 14th by being the first president of an organizing committee not to have it ready on the day we’re supposed to,” he said.
From the New York Times