The Olympics

The Olympics

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News, information and stories about the Olympics.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

2012 Olympics To Cost £12BN

As I predicted some months ago, the costs of the 2012 London Olympics are now expected to hit £12BN (including the £2BN running costs).

The original budget was a paltry £2.4BN.

How can the planners have go this so wrong?

Simple, the budget was not properly put together; because the politicians running this farce are incompetent.

Never, ever, trust a politician to run a major project like this; you only have to look at the Dome fiasco to see how bad things can get, when the politicians are entrusted with a project.

Blair's legacy will be:

1 The Iraq war

2 The Dome

3 The Olympic budgetary fiasco

Monday, February 26, 2007

Where's The Budget

In the run up to the 2012 London Olympics, the politicians who foisted this event upon the citizens of London would have you believe that everything was going "swimmingly".

Unfortunately there is one small fly in the ointment.

There is no believable/realistic budget!

The British Olympic Association (BOA) called upon ministers to come clean with respect to the budget, as concerns grow over the out of control costs.

Chairman of the BOA, Colin Moynihan, has quite rightly identified that the continuing uncertainty over the budget was damaging.

He spoke on BBC Radio 5 Live's Sportsweek:

"It should be (announced) as soon as possible - this debate is not helping the whole Olympic project.

It should then be accountable to the public at large
."

Adding:

"When they do come forward, we will see if they have included in that budget a huge regeneration project in the East End.

What I have asked for is that there should be absolute clarity about the costs that are going to be required to deliver the Games on the Olympic Park
."

As speculation intensifies as to the "true" budget, the current figure being bandied about is £9BN.

The more cynical amongst us would hazard a guess at £12BN in fact.

Politicians should never be trusted with large scale projects of this nature. Those of you who are still in denial over this should look to the Dome, as a fine example as to what goes wrong when politicians become involved in long term projects.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Safe Water For Beijing Games

Jiao Zhizhong, the head of the Beijing Water Authority, is confident its water quality will meet or surpass Olympic water quality standards in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Five new sewage treatment plants will be installed this year.

Jiao Zhizhong said that 80% homes have water-saving equipment installed, and that farms are irrigating more conservatively.

When the Olympics begin in August 2008, Beijing will receive an extra 79 million gallons of water from the nearby Hebei province.