POSTED: May 31st 2011

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NEIL WILSON: Monday morning feelings prove next to nothing for 2012

THE NEIL WILSON COLUMN / An exclusive, authoritative series from Sports Features Communications

LONDON, May 31: When the regular team of volunteers from the Virgin London Marathon organisation began final preparations in The Mall for the first test event of the 2012 Olympic Games the only spectators were a few stragglers from the night spots of London’s West End. It was 4am.

Nothing uncommon about it for them. They have organized a marathon around the streets of the capital every year since 1981. Every gantry, every barrier, every timing pad and water station fit like pieces in a well-used jigsaw. The Mall is as much home to them as to the band of the Coldstream Guards.

It was a test in name only. The International  Olympic Committee demands one but it was about as necessary in London as rehearsing the Changing of the Guard. Just as the next test event will be for tennis – Wimbledon fortnight.

When the IOC decided to award London the 2012 Olympic Games there were many who questioned whether the stadia would be ready.

Coming at a time when it was taking Britain years to rebuild a stadium at Wembley it was a reasonable scepticism.

What nobody questioned was that Britain knew how to put on a sporting show. They put them on every year, and have been doing so for a century or more, whether it is the Wimbledon fortnight, Royal Ascot, the Boat Race or, in this case, the London marathon. No country does it better.

Trains may not run on time in Britain but when it comes to
sporting occasions everything runs like clockwork.  So what did the IAAF technical experts who watched learn?

Test event

A traffic island near Tower Bridge will have to be demolished for the real Olympics but then they knew that. It just could not be afforded for a test event, so the 39 clubs runners had to run 10 metres further than the true distance.

A police helicopter that flew over the course also discovered that a few of London’s plane trees will have to be trimmed of foliage so that television is not denied sight of key moments. The annual race in April does not have to worry about leaves on trees.

They were details. Otherwise it was a useful practice run for
Omega, the Olympic timing sponsor which has never been involved with the London marathon, and a more enjoyable than usual training run for club runners who will not be there for the Olympics.

“I would prefer to run this course than the annual marathon
because it is designed to showcase the city,” said Chris Finill, who has run every London marathon and was chosen to “win” the test event.

What a test event like Monday's does is make everybody more confident than ever of what they had thought along. The trains may run late and the weather may be foul but in 2012, there will be a well-run Olympic Games organised in London.

NEIL WILSON reported his first Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. He has since covered another nine summer and nine winter Olympics for various newspapers, including The Independent and the Daily Mail with whom he has worked for the last 19 years as Athletics and Olympic correspondent. He was Britain's Sports Journalist of the Year in 1984 and is the author of seven books

Keywords · Neil Wilson · London 2012 · volunteers

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