GOLD MEDAL FOR MADNESS

So we all agree. The British performance in Athens 2004 was a triumph, whereas the performance in Sydney 2000 was a disaster. No matter that the medals tally was virtually identical. In sport, image is all. Britain has an Olympics bid in play and glitter must fall from Heaven on every sign of success.

No one can deny Kelly Holmes and Amir Khan their triumphs. It was like watching a real-life dramatisation of Kipling’s If. Most Olympic sports would be crashingly dull were it not for screaming commentators, but there is fleeting excitement to the proper “Greek” ones, where winning is not about scoring but about who runs fastest and hits hardest. It is always good to see young people doing something better than their elders.

Yet the real Olympics begin now. The paths of glory do not lead, as the poet said, but to the grave, but rather to a Blairite “victory parade”, through London, with the winners in front and gongs for all. The titanic contest at Athens was not for medals but for the privilege of allowing the International Olympic Committee to park its giant white elephant on someone else’s lawn in 2012. These competitors are ministers, officials and lobbyists. When London was merely shortlisted for the 2012 Games, fireworks rent the night sky over the Thames for more than half an hour.

The Greeks won undoubted gold. They were traduced beforehand, told on the basis of sound evidence that they could not run a donkey race. They would not be ready. They would not be safe. Their weather was too hot. I was sorry about this because I love Greece and feared some terrible denouement.

The panic-stricken Greeks did the wisest thing. They spent fantastic sums doing whatever the International Olympic Committee told them. They spent $4.7 billion on every road, stadium, pool and velodrome demanded of them. They spent a billion dollars on security. They staged their biggest events, such as Paula Radcliffe’s marathon, in the stifling early evening to maximise American television revenue. Their opening ceremony was the most breathtaking money could buy.

The gods smiled in return. Athens was ready on time, luxurious and unbelievably lucky. The marathon assault came on the last day not the first, and from an Irishman not an Arab. Pressure of numbers was lessened by only two thirds of the seats being occupied. The Games worked. A total of $7 billion went up in smoke and glory and an appreciative world said thank you.

There will be the hell of a hangover. The Athens Games appear not to have made a profit, even on their operating account. The local economy has surged on the “lumpy investment” needed for the 17-day extravaganza. Such public spending is the fiscal equivalent of a heroin rush. The Greek budget deficit is now certain to crash through 4%, well above the 3% eurozone limit set by the European Central Bank.

Correcting such a deficit is imposing an awesome political price on Germany after its unification splurge. In Greece, the Olympic Games have already needed a “stability programme”, mildly described by the EU Commission as “optimistic”. Welfare may well have to be curtailed, along with employment and infrastructure spending. The pressure on the country’s always delicate politics will be intense.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, can equal the lunacy of the requirements now laid on host countries by the IOC. This self-perpetuating elite demands facilities which nobody dares to question on pain of “losing the bid”. The growth of team sports and partial professionalism (allowed in tennis, but not boxing) has hugely increased staging costs. The event requires total outlays of some $12 billion for 17 days. I find this near unbelievable.

The Beijing Games in 2008 are already forcing that city to spend $35 billion. Much of this is to upgrade the capital’s infrastructure, but it will do so on the back of one of the poorest countries in the world, whose provinces must crave such investment. It will distort China’s investment programme for decades. Expenditure on this scale for a single event must be beyond all historical parallel, more appropriate to a medieval tyrant than a modern, even authoritarian, state.

That the Olympics make money for host cities is a fantasy spread by the IOC without a shred of economic evidence to support it. Montreal’s taxpayers are still paying an Olympics surcharge, a quarter of a century after their Games. Sydney’s “successful” event in 2000 left behind stadiums for which no one can find a use and an annual cost of £18 million in maintenance. The only sensible Games were in Los Angeles in 1984. (Source: Times Online)