POSTED: May 1st 2009
NewsUpdate
Olympic values more important than ever, says Coe
KEIR RADNEDGE / Sports Features Communications
MILAN: Lord Seb Coe believes that the values of the Olympic movement are an ideal antidote to the twisted legacy of the world economic crisis.
Coe, chairman of the organising committee of the 2012 Games in London, delivered ringing call to ethical arms in an address to the international sports media in Milan.
AIPS Congress in Milan heard him report construction work ahead of schedule and claim that the Games project had gained in significance because of the national and international financial uncertainty.
Coe said: “The reason we have punched through in this difficult economic climate is down to two things – bringing our partners through and putting construction in place early but also probably because this is the best time ever for the Olympic movement to reaffirm the ageless and timeless values that it stands for – friendship, respect, fair play, courage, determination and equality.”
Gap in ethics
Contrasting ethics in sport with their absence from recently-revealed financial and business practices, he said: “There is no better time to reaffirm these characteristics given that we find ourselves in the position we do partly due to narrow, aggressive and individualistic delivery and sometimes to the pursuit of narrow advantage: the very antithesis of those values that the Olympic movement has striven to defend and deliver over the past 100 years.
“This brand is fighting through because the Olympic values are as strong as they are and I hope we all recognise that this is something worth defending.
“I used to play judo and the art of playing judo is take the force and pressure on you and return it to throw your opponent – and this is the moment for the Olympic movement to throw its weight behind that brand and reaffirm its values.”
Spectator experience
Coe said that one of the key lessons London had taken from Beijing 2008 was the importance of putting athletes at the centre of the project.
He added: “If you do this then, by implication, you have to get so much else right. For example, you cannot bring athletes to a city where the transport system evaporates within hours of the opening ceremony. Nor can you bring them to a substandard village, they have to be in an ambient from which great performances are given.”
Spectators, suggested Coe, had a right to an experience whose quality ranged far beyond the sporting events within the venues.
The ability of London 2012 to achieve that, he said, owed much to the early planning which secured the financial guarantees to keep construction work ahead of schedule. Thus the Olympic project was contributing more than had been anticipated in the days before the collapse of the financial markets.
Early advantage
Coe said: “We have 4,000 people working on the project so this has become an even more important entity than expected.
“The decision to bring our partners to the table early was very important. It allowed us to move from planning into delivery with certainty, it gave us a financial cushion which is important to deliver a great Games.
“The Olympic village is ahead of schedule, work started last week on the broadcast and media centres, the stadium will be ready in 2011 for testing, the acquatic centre and velopark are surging ahead and the sailing centre in Weymouth is already completed.”
Returning to the values theme, Coe concluded: “The project is in good shape, we are where we want to be and that’s in large part due to the values of the Olympic movement and sport – and we should never forget that.”
Keywords · Coe · London 2012 · Olympc Games
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