2012 is the great summer of sport—the greatest since the last great summer of sport. Which was probably last summer or the summer before. In fact, the really unusual thing these days would be a summer without much sport. And forget the back page, it’s front page stuff nowadays.

Come to think of it, it’s all over the business pages and social affairs columns too. London 2012—the “regeneration games” that will “inspire a generation” is another example in a long line of examples where sport is being pressed into service for wider political, economic and social agendas. We have come to believe that sport will make us healthy and wealthy—even good and peaceful.

If you listen to some, then the Olympics will deliver a major boost to Britain at a time of economic uncertainty. Yet no recent Olympic Games has produced proven significant economic benefits to the host city or country. Chinese commentators have described the effects of the huge investment in the Beijing Games as negligible. Eight years after the Athens 2004 Games, 21 of the 22 Olympic venues remain abandoned. The Sydney Olympics tripled its budget and the former Chief Planner for the Sydney Games has said that the host city should have focused more broadly on a legacy programme for the Olympics site and that “Sydney is now paying the price.” Why should London be any different?

Paul Bickley | Prospect Online

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