You've got to hand it to London 2012.

To have kept the Olympic project on the rails to the extent they have, given what the world has thrown at them since the UK capital won the right to host the Games in Singapore in 2005, is a remarkable achievement.

Maintain this level of performance for a further year and a bit and the appointment of chief executive Paul Deighton to join Sebastian Coe in the House of Lords some time in 2013 would surely be a formality.

There, though, is the rub: Deighton, Coe and their teams must not rest on their laurels.

Should anything bad happen between now and the moment next September when the aircraft carrying the last Paralympic athlete takes off from Heathrow and heads out of UK airspace, and there is a strong risk that six years of intensive and meticulously planned labour will count for precisely nothing.

These thoughts are triggered by a week that has underlined like no other I can remember both how spectacularly well this complex mega-project has been executed to date and how hard it will be to maintain this spotless record in the home straight.


As I write this, people around the world will be looking at images in their newspapers and on their TV screens of London, next year's Olympic city, burning.

Yes, those of us who live relatively locally, know that riot-hit Tottenham is some way from the Olympic Park and that Saturday night's chaos will most likely prove an isolated incident.

But, equally, I would be surprised if London 2012 did not find itself fielding international phone calls on the subject in coming days.

Nor is the timing great, less than a month after senior resignations from the Metropolitan Police, including that of Sir Paul Stephenson, the Commissioner.

Security is of necessity, the number one priority of an Olympic Games organiser in the 21st century.

Though I don't imagine for one minute that Olympic security will, in fact, be compromised, I do think it likely that Games organisers, along with Government officials, will have to devote more energy than they would ideally like in coming months to reassuring people that the UK capital remains effectively policed.

Last week also provided further sobering reminders of the economic and financial turbulence that London 2012 has been confronted with for the majority of the period since Singapore 2005.

At the macro-level, market concerns over the quantity of Government debt sparked fresh turmoil in the Euro-zone and the downgrading by a leading credit rating agency of the United States' AAA rating.

Meanwhile, there was the latest in a long line of disconcerting news announcements affecting London 2012 sponsors, when the chief executive of travel group Thomas Cook resigned.

If you are looking for a testament to the Olympic brand's power, even in the most trying background economic circumstances, then the list of sponsors assembled by London 2012 - now numbering more than 50 if you include the International Olympic Committee's worldwide TOP partners - certainly provides it.

But the list is testament too to the calibre of London 2012 management: had they not sped out of the blocks when economic conditions were still benign in the immediate aftermath of Singapore 2005, then the sponsorship story of the Games might be very different.


A few aspects of organising the Games have probably been easier in a recession than a boom, notably controlling the cost of the vast construction project that is London's Olympic Park.

And the Games are costing a lot more than originally estimated.

In the words of the Public Accounts Committee of MPs: "At the time of London's bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012 the cost of the Games was estimated to be just over £4 billion [$6.6 billion/€4.6 billion]...

"After London was awarded the Games, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Olympic Delivery Authority reviewed the cost estimates and in March 2007 announced a budget of £9.325 billion [$15.3 billion/€10.7 billion]."

Nonetheless, this week also brought a reminder of how much worse things could be.

A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India found that last year's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi cost $4.1 billion (£2.5 billion/€2.9 million) instead of the $270 million (£165 million/€189 million) initially estimated.

So, well done London Olympic Games organisers for your achievements to date, but whatever you do don't stop pedalling until September 2012.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.