14.6 Billion dollars spent on Olympic games whose legacy has caused a decrease in school sport according to an online survey published in 2013.

 

The London 2012 Olympics, according to Coe, “lit up the world”. It bought glamour and bright lights  to the East End of London. It cast celebration over the normally subdued Stratford, inspiring us all as it went along. Interest was high, as sellout crowds flooded in to cheer on athletes such as Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah - who clinched gold medals on the memorable ‘Super Saturday’. Events that have not been witnessed by a generation; we saw success in British sport.

 

Success that should of inspired us, but we instead forgot. The bright lights and glamour disappeared, with stadiums knocked down to make way for flats and the Olympic Village sold off to billionaires. We were thrown back to sitting watching reality TV on a Saturday night, whilst constantly being bombarded with the future of sport on the news.

 

Lord Coe’s claim to “inspire a generation” was at the forefront of our legacy, one that some would argue clinched our rights to hold the jewel of all sporting events. One that many other hosts, such as China, had failed to deliver causing many of the stadiums to survive just as a tourist attractions. We would achieve what every other host nation had failed at, have a legacy that would redevelop and ignite UK sport. According to the IOC, we would invest 1 billion pounds into youth sport before 2017, and leave no white elephants helplessly dormant in Stratford. However, with cuts of 162 million to school sport funds, Michael Gove is just one of the people squandering this increasingly meaningless legacy. Instead a huge budget for conversion has been drawn up, to make the Olympic stadium suitable for premier league football. A budget that has been superfluously exceeded due to an inadequate legacy provided.

 

Similarly, there have been various cuts to our sports funding for GB athletes. This has left sports such as rowing struggling to fund their future attempts at Rio 2016 (due to minimal advertising/brand sponsor opportunities in this sport). This negative message leaves a disinterest in sport from youth, as if there is lack of funding at professional level there is little or no impact of funding at grassroots.

 

As funding is slowly being taken away from youth sport, and promised funding yet appear, we are left questioning the ‘legacy’ we have left behind. Was the Olympics won on a counterfeit legacy that glorified our otherwise uninspiring bid? Why was the support and inspiration of the Olympics lost so quickly?

 

No one can question the popularity of the games with 90% of the UK watching the Olympics at some point on BBC during the summer of 2012. However from the decreasing participation levels this interest has been lost. People have been left unprovoked by bid to provoke.

 

Even after the glittering months of July and August 2012, the Olympics has given itself a reoccurring issue, with Lord Coe’s claims to “inspire”, the latest to join the rather large pile of insignificantly pointless legacies.

Jack Butler