I saw my 2010 Winter Olympic DVD collection laying about and decided to re-live the Vancouver games.
Mind you, knowing exactly when Sidney Crosby scores for the Canadian men’s hockey team in the gold medal game and knowing that Cheryl Bernard and rink will have to settle for silver in women’s curling takes a lot of the frantic excitement away.
The 2010 Olympics weren’t all fun though as people in Vancouver will tell you – the Olympic Village is something people continue to pay (or not pay) for depending on your point of view. A number of the condos have not been sold.
But my 2010 nostalgia reminded me of something else. The 2012 Summer Olympics will take place in London, England and reading the London newspapers, I can’t help but see similarities.
Citing a British parliamentary watch dog, a March 9 story from the guardian.co.uk reports that the 2012 games’ overall cost currently sits at £11 billion while the security costs have doubled.
Security was a big issue in the lead up to the Vancouver games and according to reports, the initial cost estimate was about $175 million. However, a news release from the federal government dated February 2009 said that the security budget would come in at an estimated $900 million.
Guess what one of the concerns of the London games is?
London’s Olympic organizing committee Locog (the equivalent of Vanoc) had estimated that the number of security guards for the numerous Olympic facilities and surrounding areas would be around 10,000 but the report says that the British government made an announcement in December that the number of security guards was twice as much, at 23,700.
Costs for security in the 2012 Olympic budget also were said to have increased from £282 million to £553 million in the span of a year.
Security is important and unlike Vancouver, London has been the victim of terrorist attacks in the past (2005) so ensuring that it doesn’t happen again, particularly at the games, is very important. Many more people will be in London to watch the summer games.
If a city does get an
Olympic games, it might be useful for organizing committees to overestimate initially as opposed to underestimating.
Go high and hope that it goes low.
– Karl Yu is editor of the Grand Forks Gazette.