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The London 2012 torch mixes the Olympian and the corporate

Sponsors to the fore in torch relay but who will light the flame in the London 2012 Olympic stadium?This article titled “The London 2012 torch mixes the Olympian and the corporate” was written by Owen Gibson, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 19th May 2011 09.58 UTCAs Seb Coe stood up to speak about the inspirational effect of the flame that will a year from now be passing through the cities, towns and villages of Britain having been “lit by the power of the sun on Mount Olympus”, three other figures looked on intently.They sat alongside him as he went on to talk about the galvanising effect he expected the tour to have on communities as the Olympic spirit coursed through them and they hosted their own celebratory events in the early summer gloaming.And they listened intently as Coe spoke affectingly about a husband and wife team who sold their house so the community gym they run in south-east London could survive – his nomination for one of the 7,200 out of 8,000 torchbearer slots reserved for members of the public.The three onlookers, who then got to take their turn to speak, were representatives of the three “presenting partners” – Samsung, Coca-Cola and Lloyds TSB – who get to plaster their branding over the torch relay. The man from Coca-Cola alone promised to bring “happiness and celebration” to the route.It is they (along with local authorities along the way) who effectively pay for the hoopla that will surround the torch relay that organisers hope will be the moment that the nation drops any lingering cynicism and truly embraces the Games.It was the most obvious manifestation in London to date of the sometimes uneasy, but ultimately profitable, mix of heady Olympic ideals and hard-nosed commercialism that has turned the modern Games into the globe-straddling event that it is.The genius of the International Olympic Committee’s commercial growth since the Los Angeles Games of 1984 has been to rake in huge sums from sponsors while enforcing very strict rules on how they can use the rights.As one of the very few events that the IOC allows them to overtly brand, the torch relay is where that symbiotic relationship – the organising committee Locog needs the sponsors to contribute £700m towards its £2bn budget, the sponsors want to extract every last drop of value out of their huge investment – becomes clearest.So it was that Coe began his press conference invoking the loftiest of Olympic ideals and ended it defending the involvement of Coke and answering questions on how many fizzy drinks his children guzzled.In common with their wider activity to date surrounding the London Games – which has tended to focus on warm and fuzzy corporate social responsibility activity rather than overt branding – all three sponsors have bought into the idea of using the relay as a means to run campaigns offering worthy members of the public the opportunity to claim their own slice of Olympic history and run a few hundred yards with the torch.A Locog team has spent two years painstakingly researching the 8,000-mile route and negotiating with local authorities. They hope that when the relay hits town, backed by wall-to-wall coverage from local media who will concentrate on the rich back stories of those running and the celebratory event that will take place every night (something between a Radio 1 roadshow and a county fair sponsored by multinationals, by the sound of things) Olympic fever will take hold up and down the country.Whether they succeed will depend to a large extent on those sponsors. If they get it right, Locog, the brands and the public will benefit. Get it wrong, and it could dent public enthusiasm.Sally Hancock, head of 2012 at Lloyds TSB, argued at the launch that in many ways the Olympics couldn’t have come at a better time for her company. Struggling to repair public trust and negotiating the internal challenge of merging two huge banks, the opportunity to create a feelgood factor around an event that is at once local and national in scale could be a huge one.But if the public is turned off and fails to buy into the concept – Locog has promised half the runners will be between 12 and 24 and 90% will be ordinary members of the public, to be nominated through four separate campaigns by the organisers and the sponsors– then it will feel like a long 8,000 miles.Locog will also have to get the balance right between safety and celebration. The defining public image of the Beijing international torch tour, which caused the IOC to turn it into a domestic event confined to the host country, was of a scrum of security guards bludgeoning their way through human rights protesters as bussed-in supporters of the Chinese government looked on.The UK’s experience will be becalmed by comparison. But Coe – who has often described Britain as a “slow-burn nation” that will take time to reach fever pitch over the Olympics – knows more than anyone how crucial it is that the relay is the moment at which the flame ignites that enthusiasm.And by the time the torch reaches the Olympic stadium, the eyes of the world will be on it. Which raises three obvious questions: Who will light the cauldron? How? And where will it be (there is still debate within Locog about whether it should be in the stadium, on top of it or on some sort of structure nearby)?The most memorable final torchbearers – Muhammad Ali in Atlanta, Cathy Freeman in Sydney – have held resonance beyond merely their status as sporting heroes in their home country. And the more spectacular the method of lighting the cauldron (the archer in Barcelona, the flying Beijing gymnast), the greater the risk of global humiliation.The task for Danny Boyle, the Trainspotting director already planning the opening ceremony in an east London warehouse, will be to come up with something to top what has gone before. Bookmakers immediately installed Sir Steve Redgrave as favourite, but will the emphasis on youth that characterised the bid promises lead organisers to a younger face? Coe, who might have been a leading contender were he not already so intimately involved with the staging of the Games, has already ruled himself out. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogThe London 2012 torch mixes the Olympian and the corporateRelated posts:London Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame routeLondon 2012 Olympics countdown clock stopsLondon 2012: Ten best of the web

May 19 2011, 5:24am | Comments »

Leeds to Paris in four hours – but high-speed rail plan faces protests

Leeds to Paris by Eurostar in four hours when the high speed rail network is completed.

This article titled “Leeds to Paris in four hours – but high-speed rail plan faces protests” was written by Dan Milmo and Martin Wainwright, for The Guardian on Monday 28th February 2011 19.51 UTC The battleground over a £32bn high-speed rail network moved from the shires to the north after the government outlined the case for a second phase linking Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds. Undaunted by a backlash in Tory heartlands over plans for a 225mph London-to-Birmingham line, the transport secretary, Philip Hammond, backed plans for joining it to a Y-shaped national network. The proposals include a link to the Channel tunnel rail route that would transport passengers in Manchester and Leeds to Paris in less than four hours without a London stopover. However, the proposals for 200 miles of new track are likely to be of more immediate concern to the thousands of households that line the potential routes in Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire. The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said the economic arguments in favour of the northern extension of High Speed Two (HS2) could be drowned out by protests over blight. “As this proceeds, we are going to hear some very different voices from the north, arguing passionately about the beautiful local countryside,” said Ralph Smyth, CPRE’s senior transport campaigner. “Take the Cheshire area around Wilmslow, which lies right on the likely route of the Birmingham-to-Manchester line. You have got very wealthy, very influential people there, who are not going to take happily to HS2 driving through.” Launching a consultation on a national high-speed network, Hammond was confident that the economic case would prove more powerful with residents in the north than it has in the home counties, with the full route forecast to produce a £44bn boost to the UK. “Ironically the further north we get the easier it will get. Once you get further away from the south-east people seem to understand more clearly the argument on jobs and growth.” According to the Department for Transport, the first phase alone would help create 40,000 jobs. Hammond said the northern section could open in 2032, six years after the London-to-Birmingham route. A consultation on the specific route will start next year after detailed plans are published. It is understood that more than a dozen routes are under consideration for phase 2, which will be reduced to a shortlist by early 2012. If the proposals receive the green light, journey times to Manchester and Leeds from London will be reduced from more than two hours to 73 and 80 minutes respectively. Sources said planning for the Birmingham-to-Leeds section has proved particularly challenging, due to the hilly landscape and the number of small mining communities and former collieries dotted along the potential route. “It is a complicated landscape,” said one expert. Hammond said ramblers in the Peak District would not be disturbed by bullet trains tearing through an area of outstanding natural beauty, with the Birmingham-to-Leeds line likely to pass between Derby and Nottingham, and to the east of one of Britain’s most stunning national parks. However, the Chiltern Hills, another area of outstanding natural beauty, have been less fortunate and the first phase of the network will pass through the area when the line opens in 2026. Hammond said environmentally friendly amendments to the London-to-Birmingham route published in the consultation, such as deeper cuttings, would be repeated when the northern extension is drafted: “We will be doing exactly the same as we are doing in the Chilterns. We will work with communities and engineers to minimise the effect on sensitive landscapes.” The Department for Transport is confident the rail route will challenge one of the major bastions of domestic aviation – the London to Scotland route – with a forecast journey time of three-and-a-half hours. Rail would take half of the air-rail market, the consultation argued. The current figure stands at 20%. Under the proposals high-speed trains will leave the network at Manchester and Leeds and travel to Scotland on conventional lines. The consultation argues that high-speed rail is the obvious solution to a looming capacity shortage on England’s major rail routes, pointing out that passengers are already forced to stand up on peak-hour services on those lines. The document states: “Long-term forecasts have been developed on demand growth on these three main north-south lines out of London which connect the majority of Britain’s major cities. These forecasts look forward to the early 2040s and show that, even allowing for a range of enhancements to these lines, crowding levels on long-distance services will continue to rise.” However, the debates over blight and economics are likely to rumble on. Critics of the programme pounced on revised figures in the consultation, which showed that the economic benefit of the first phase would equate to £2 for every £1 spent, instead of the £2.70 that was forecast last year. “That is mediocre value for money by official Treasury standards,” said Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation. A government source said that earlier estimates had been based on “fantastical” forecasts by the Labour government.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLeeds to Paris in four hours – but high-speed rail plan faces protests

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March 2 2011, 12:44pm | Comments »

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The London 2012 torch mixes the Olympian and the corporate

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