London ponder how to follow Beijing spectacular

Source:The Guardian, UK.

London's Olympic organisers delivered a progress report to the International Olympic Committee's annual session in Beijing yesterday and, as has become routine, received a glowing vote of confidence in return.

London's reception in IOC circles has long contrasted with the rocky ride it gets at home, but for the organising committee's chief executive, Paul Deighton, his visit to the Chinese capital has raised another challenge with which he will have to grapple in the next four years. How do you follow Beijing?

Over the next three weeks we will see a Games on a scale unprecedented in Olympic history. China has spent more money, laid more concrete and employed more people than any previous host, and the impact is likely to be spectacular.

London will have to be built and delivered within far less lavish parameters, with the main stadium the best example. Whereas Beijing has built a spectacular monument to China's new-found confidence, London will build a temporary facility for 18 days and then dismantle it, leaving a modest 25,000-seat stadium.

Deighton, who presented to the IOC yesterday in the absence of his committee's chairman, Lord Coe, who has remained in the UK to be with his ill father, said London would not suffer from the contrast. "The Olympics in Beijing is going to be so different to London and the beauty is in the contrast," he said. "I think the Beijing Games could end up being unique - I'm not sure how many other countries would have either the resources or the control of the resources to be able to put them behind an event like this. London is much more likely to be the model for Games in the future. It's important for the IOC to establish that sort of standard, otherwise it's narrowing the potential field of candidates who can stage a Games."

Deighton leads a team of more than 100 staff who will be working alongside their counterparts on the Beijing organising committee and he is confident that the closer they get to the field of play the more they will be able to learn. "The key thing I want our team to get a sense of is the scale and intensity of the Olympic Games," he said. "I want our team to have had battle experience. I don't want London 2012 to be the first time they stick their head up out of the trench, see 10,000 people charging at them and they want to run away."

London will face pressure to introduce anti-doping legislation similar to that in force in Italy and China, which makes possession of performance-enhancing drugs illegal. The IOC medical commissioner, Arne Ljungqvist, pressed Deighton on the subject yesterday and he said legislation was being considered.

Of more immediate concern will be matching the athletes' village in Beijing, described by the British Olympic Association chief executive, Simon Clegg, as the best in Olympic history. To do so the government will need to resolve the funding crisis that has stalled the project. Lend Lease, the construction firm that has taken on the job, is seeking more public money after struggling to raise its share of the original deal in the credit markets.

Deighton is confident a solution will be found this month and that there will be no compromise on quality. "The driving thrust in the village is that you have to sell these apartments for a decent price afterwards, so they are going to have to be built to a quality that will sell and hopefully turn into the place to be in London. We hope a deal will be done by Christmas."

He believes that the slump in the financial markets will not adversely affect other areas of the Games' organisation - ticketing and merchandise revenue will not start to flow until 2011, broadcast and IOC sponsorship deals have been done, and he has already raised more than half of the projected £650m in domestic sponsorship revenue.

With the prospect of financial security he can afford to consider the bigger picture this month. "If we can produce a Games that is manageable in terms of finance, planning and operations then I think we will have achieved something," he said.