Since the one year to go mark passed at the end of last month, the preparations for London 2012 have definitely moved up another gear, just as the sensational Mark Cavendish did in his sprint for the finish line down The Mall to win the London Prepares road race on Sunday.

The London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) are to be congratulated for putting on a string of successful test events so far. I've attended all 15 of them, from sailing in Weymouth to rowing in Eton, canoeing in Broxbourne to triathlon in Hyde Park. The test events provide a vital opportunity for the British Olympic Association (BOA), and our colleagues within the sport national governing bodies, to test our operations and use the feedback to develop our detailed plans for execution with Team GB next summer.

Last week my colleagues from the Team GB leadership and I took part in the London 2012 Chefs de Mission seminar alongside representatives from around 200 national Olympic committees. The leaders of Olympic teams from around the world that we spoke to were unanimously positive about the progress being made in London. In fact, they were very enthused about the quality of the venues, the integration of iconic venues – such as the beach volleyball on Horse Guards Parade – and the reports from their athletes were that they are greatly enjoying the test events and looking forward to extraordinary sporting competition next summer.

Perhaps the biggest test of all over the past fortnight has been the riots. While there can be no doubt that the images of violence were damaging, in some ways, it underscores why events such as the Olympic Games are so vitally important in our world today. A year from now, London will be the city where the world comes together in a spirit of friendship, peace, understanding and human excellence. London will be the city where we see the very best examples of humanity – and those images will be far different from what we have seen the past week.

Great Britain's athletes have been in truly outstanding form across a wide range of sports, with Helen Jenkins (pictured) and Alistair Brownlee's fantastic victories in the women's and men's triathlons followed by another win for Ben Ainslie (pictured) in the sailing before Mark Cavendish showed his class in the road cycling. Combined with exciting performances from young athletes in badminton and beach volleyball last week, these results certainly add encouragement to our ambition of winning more medals from more sports than we have done in over a hundred years next summer.


Perhaps the most pleasing outcome of the test events is that the British athletes have clearly enjoyed competing at home and been boosted by the enthusiastic support of the home crowd. The importance and impact of British fan support cannot be underestimated and I have no doubt that come next summer, the Great British public will give Team GB athletes the extra one per cent that can make all the difference.

To my mind, British sports fans are simply the best in the world – passionate, knowledgeable and ready to play their part in helping Team GB to succeed. We are currently finalising a number of opportunities for fans to get behind the team and we will reveal these exciting initiatives over the coming months as we build up to the greatest sporting event of our lifetimes, now just 346 days away.

This week, attention will turn to the Olympic Park as the first test events take place in the hugely impressive basketball arena and on the BMX track. Once again, British athletes will be looking to feed off the home crowd support and deliver inspirational performances. Let's go GB!

Andy Hunt is the Chef de Mission for Team GB and Chief Executive of the British Olympic Association

It is getting on for three years since I first got to know Gerry Willmott.

A former Metropolitan Police boxing champion in his late 50s, Willmott opened the Haringey Police Community Amateur Boxing Club in 1999, on a site adjacent to the White Hart Lane ground of Tottenham Hotspur, the Premier League football club. He wanted, he told me, to give local kids in the North London borough something to keep them out of trouble. He described himself to me as "an old-fashioned policeman from the 1970s – I'm here to stop kids doing wrong".

The club – a hive of no-nonsense, sweat-soaked industry on the occasions I visited - struck me at once as a shining example of how sport can be harnessed to make a positive impact on society.

Willmott introduced me to his club captain, Kingsley Okolie, a powerfully-built middleweight with a flashing smile, who had boxed more than 40 opponents. As a teenager, Okolie had been, in his own words, a "violent thug" who roved the capital with his gang administering contract beatings at £100 ($163/€116) a go for anyone with a grievance.

You can read my original story about Okolie and how Willmott and his gym helped him to turn his life around here.

Given the riots that broke out last week in Tottenham before spreading across London and to other English urban centres, it is worth highlighting once again how Okolie said he and his friends justified their behaviour.

"I didn't see anything wrong with it," he told me. "As far as I was concerned, that was life. You did what you could get away with ...

"We could get things other people in our class couldn't have. It was respect. We were just being hard men ...

"That was more important than anything else. At the time, you don't give a damn about your victims."

Under the circumstances, it seemed only fitting to get back in touch with Willmott, so I telephoned him this weekend. Thankfully, the club – whose rent is paid for by Spurs – had survived the riots unscathed, although a shop opposite hadn't.

"It was disappointing to see," Willmott, who was born in Tottenham, told me. "It started off outside the police station ...

"It deteriorated into criminality. It's such a shame."

I was appalled to learn, given last week's violence and the positive impact the club had been having, that its funding had been slashed. According to Willmott, cuts to money that used to be received from the local council and the police had reduced the club to the "bare bones".

"We can't do our summer schemes," he said. "The opportunities for lads to travel around have been severely reduced."

Now it might seem to some that council-funded weekend trips for inner-city kids to go and box in Liverpool or Birmingham are a luxury that the country can no longer afford. But it will be interesting to compare the cost of those with the price tag for cleaning up after last week's madness. Plus there is an educational/cultural dimension that no accountant will ever quantify.

As Willmott put it: "If we are, say, driving to Liverpool, they are amazed there is so much countryside – because they've never been there. They have just seen it on telly."

As Premier League football matches kicked off across the country, marking the start of the new season, but not in Tottenham, whose game against Everton had been postponed, Willmott gave vent to a sense of resignation that will strike a chord with those involved with grassroots sport far beyond Britain.

"That's the stupid thing," he said. "At times like this when it's all about getting kids off the streets, the money they are cutting is affecting our ability to do that."

Willmott is not aware of anyone connected with the gym getting involved in last week's incidents, although he says he will be making enquiries next week. Nonetheless, I ask him if the riots have shaken his faith in sport's ability to help keep kids out of trouble. The answer is No.

"You can't help everybody," he says. "You can try your best and work with the ones that want to be helped.

"I will keep doing my bit to teach them right from wrong and give them an alternative."

No-one pretends that it is easy: four times Okolie "derailed" before definitively changing his ways. That adds up to a lot of man hours. But the value of individuals like him - who are prepared to get up and tell young people with great articulacy, in language they can relate to, why crime is not a smart choice - is incalculable. As he said to me, "It's not like I read it in a book."

All told, Willmott estimates, the club has suffered £30-£35,000 ($49-$57,000/€34-40,000) a year in lost funding compared with the position two or three years ago. That probably seems a lot if you are struggling to get by without a job in one of the scuzzier neighbourhoods of Haringey. But in the grand scheme of things, with Britain in the latter stages of a multi-billion pound sports spending binge triggered by the London 2012 Olympics, it really is a drop in the ocean.

Willmott (pictured far left) expresses the hope that it might be a "blessing in disguise" that the rioting started in Tottenham because it should make it easier to make a case for that area being treated as a priority. He may be right, but it really shouldn't come to that. If experienced, streetwise individuals such as Willmott are prepared to devote hours of their lives to using sport to help keep disadvantaged kids out of trouble, our society ought to be giving them all the help they need.

If that much-abused term "Olympic legacy" is to count for anything, then it ought to be that.

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

The Visa FIVB Beach Volleyball International - perhaps better known as the London 2012 Olympic beach volleyball test event - has been taking place at the iconic Horse Guards Parade over the past few days and it gave me a flashback to a very popular event at the inaugural Singapore Youth Olympic Games last year.

I remember that wherever I went in the Southeast Asian city-state during Singapore 2010, people were talking about just one sport – the three-on-three basketball. After I could take it no longer, I decided to head along to the event myself to see what all the fuss was about.

I soon found myself hooked as I came across an adrenaline-packed game played on half a court with just one basketball hoop to aim at. It was the undoubted highlight of the Youth Olympics and something I was reminded of this week when I was hearing non-stop plaudits about how great the Olympic beach volleyball test event was.

I was fortunate enough to be a guest of Visa for a Friday afternoon/evening session at the venue and made my way along where I expected the competition - featuring 24 of the best teams in the world - to be rather over-hyped. I was glad to be proved very wrong.

As soon as I entered, everything about the set up seemed fun and fast-paced with hip hop, R&B and dance music blearing out of the speakers all around the venue. It is something that this area of Whitehall in central London doesn't often see but I was surprised how the shiny new arena blended into the charming old backdrop quite seamlessly.

Another thing I was pleased to see as I made my way to my seat was the sheer diversity of the crowd. There were young people, old people, people in fancy dress and people in suits who had come straight from work all blending to create a fantastic atmosphere.

The riots across the UK have taken the headlines in the capital, and indeed the world, this week and it would not be at all surprising if there had been a rather subdued air about the place but at the beach volleyball, you wouldn't have had a clue that anything at all sinister was going on in the outside world.

People were laughing, joking, drinking - sensibly I assure you - and cheering throughout the matches as they watched the world's top female volleyball players compete on the golden sand - 2,274 tonnes of Redhill 28 sand to be precise.

That brings me to the action itself. As a young red-blooded male, it was rather easy on the eye watching stunning girls compete on the sand as I looked on with a cold beer in hand!


But what I quickly realised was that the skill and athleticism required to play the sport at the top level is incredible and I found found myself standing and applauding with the rest of the crowd after some breath-taking points. But the highlight came as the sky began to grow dark and the floodlights turned on to create a postcard scene.

Incidentally, the GB pairing of Lucy Boulton and Denise Johns came on court just as the lights lit up the sand and the roar after every point of their match was so deafening that my ears have only just recovered. The GB pairing eventually just missed out on a podium spot as they lost the bronze medal match to Brazilian pair Taiana Lima and Vivian Danielle da Conceicao.

Gold went to the Brazilian pair of Lili Maestrini and Angela Vieira as they beat Americans April Ross and Jennifer Kessy in a match I'm sure the entire male crowd enjoyed. But despite the Brazilians dominating, the real winner was beach volleyball as the setting, the players and the audience combined to create an amazing atmosphere.

During the event, I managed to run into President of the British Volleyball Federation Richard Callicott who seemed to put his finger on why things were going so well.

"The great thing about this sport, unlike some of the other Olympic sports, is that the crowd can cheer and talk and laugh the whole time," he told me.

"There are some sports where there has to be complete silence throughout but in beach volleyball it is quite the opposite and the athletes feed off that. I think this event has shown just what a great spectator sport beach volleyball is and with this venue, I know it will be a major hit at the Olympics."

From my vantage point, the announcer who interviews the crowd between play is also a welcome addition, as are the dancers who regularly take to the sand.

The thing about the beach volleyball at the Olympics is that the test event was only a minor taster of things to come. Where the Visa FIVB Beach Volleyball International saw a 1,500 capacity temporary arena in place, the Olympics will have 15,000 capacity temporary arena in place meaning a bigger atmosphere and ultimately a better event.

It is just a feeling, but like the 3-on-3 basketball competition at the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games, beach volleyball could be the show stealer at the London 2012 Olympics.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames

With less than a year to go until the Games begin, as you'd expect, LOCOG's planning is reaching a forensically detailed level and "readiness" is the buzz word - but this isn't just restricted to London.

All around the world National Olympic Committees (NOCs) are preparing their teams for next summer and there is much to be done. The logistics of moving athletes around the world is huge; each NOC wants to ensure that their athletes and officials have all the tools they need to perform at their best – from accommodation to transport, catering to medical facilities – only the best will do for the athletes.

And quite right too.

The people who are responsible for the teams coming to compete in 2012 are the Chefs de Mission and this week we have been hosting around 200 of them here in London.

It has been a fascinating and eventful week.

What has happened in London this week has not dampened the enthusiasm of the teams coming to the Games next year at all. As we took them around some of the venues this week and spent some time at Horse Guards Parade for the test events, the mood amongst the Chefs de Mission teams was upbeat and positive. They were blown away by the venues and as they fly home today and tomorrow, they will do so happy that the venues will be world-class and that their athletes will be well looked after.

We spent a great deal of time taking the teams through our plans in great detail, looking at each different functional area within the Organising Committee and updating them on our plans.


Talking to some of the Chefs de Mission this week, I know they are impressed with the focus we have on the athletes, that buzz word "readiness" was heard several times – they're happy with that and we had several volunteers working with us on the logistics of this week – they were especially impressed with them. It all bodes well for 2012.

That's not to say the work is done and we can sit back.

Not least because in three week's time the Chefs de Mission from the National Paralympic Committees are coming for a similar exercise. There is still much to do before we are ready to welcome the world's athletes in 2012, but our teams here will continue to work with the NOC's and NPC's to ensure that when their teams arrive next year, we will be ready to give them a warm welcome and fully operational facilities.

The endorsement of these guys is brilliant - they are the experts who know what the athletes need in order to compete at the highest level. They leave the UK this weekend happy, confident and crucially looking forward to immensely to coming back next summer with their athletes.

James MacLeod is head of National Olympic Committees and National Paralympic Committee Committees Relations at London 2012

The debate has been rather quiet for nearly two years now but it suddenly burst back open last month on July 19 as Oscar Pistorius ran the 400metres in a time of 45.07sec in a race in Lignano in Italy.

The significance of the time was that it meant the double leg amputee from South Africa, competing with the carbon fibre legs he runs on, had surpassed the A standard time of 45.25 which he needed to qualify for the South African team that will compete at the World Athletics Championships in Daegu later this month.

Since that day, South Africa has named the 24 year old as its only 400m runner for the event and we find ourselves with the same question: "Should the blade runner be allowed to compete against able-bodied athletes?"

The question itself dates back to 2007 when Pistorius took part in his first international competition for able-bodied athletes and began to draw complaints that artificial limbs gave him an unfair advantage over his rivals.

The same year, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) amended its competition rules to ban the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device."

The organisation rather bizarrely claimed that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius but they officially ruled on January 14, 2008 that the South African was ineligible for competitions conducted under its rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics, following a series of scientific tests.

A battle followed as Pistorius employed the services of law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf to challenge the ruling and travelled to America to take part in a further series of scientific tests carried out at Rice University in Houston.

An appeal against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) took place in Lausanne in Switzerland and after a two-day hearing which concluded on May 18, 2008, CAS upheld Pistorius' appeal and the IAAF Council decision was revoked with immediate effect.

It was concluded that "not enough is known scientifically to be able to prove that Mr Pistorius obtains an unfair advantage from the use of prosthetics."

The IAAF President Lamine Diack was one of the first to welcome the move stating he is happy to see Pistorius compete.

"Oscar will be welcomed wherever he competes this summer," said Diack.

"He is an inspirational man and we look forward to admiring his achievements in the future."

The debate soon died down as for two years, Pistorius was no real threat to the top able-bodied stars.

He missed out on qualification for the Beijing 2008 Olympics and although he won three Paralympic gold medals in China, his winning time of 47.49 at the Paralympics was a symbolic mile behind the 43.75 American LaShawn Merritt ran to win the Olympic race.


Pistorius got gradually better in 2009 and again in 2010 but by this time the A standard time for the World Championships and Olympics had been set at 45.25, a time seemingly out of reach for the South African.

But on that night in Italy, the cat was right back among the pigeons as the South African ran a time not only good enough to qualify him for the World Championships and probably the London 2012 Olympics, but a time good enough to earn him fifth place in the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

At 24 years old, that time is only going to get faster meaning that Pistorius is now not only a potential Olympian, but a potential threat at the Olympics. This, more than anything else, has created problems.

Former British 400m star and Olympic silver medallist Roger Black has been particularly vocal on the issue.

"He was running okay times for the past few years but he was never going to challenge the best in the world and as long as he was doing that, it was fine," said Black.

"But now he is moving into territory which is starting to get interesting.

"If he gets down to 44.5 seconds, then it changes the whole discussion because nobody knows whether his blades are an advantage or not.

"They have not been around long enough.

"We don't know if Oscar is an amazing athlete, or a very good athlete with an advantage.

"What if a kid comes along with the talent of (world record holder) Michael Johnson but has an accident and then runs 41 seconds?"

"This is a whole grey area.

"I can only imagine how I would feel if I raced against him in the Olympics and he beat me.

"Now he is a real threat and a real player on the world stage, other athletes will say that it is unfair."

The argument here is that Pistorius is now a problem because he has shown he is now good enough to run times to challenge the elite.

Such an argument must be flawed and instead of asking what is making Pistorius so fast, perhaps it is best to ask how impressive it is that this athlete can continue to produce such impressive times with no legs?

Imagine the effort it takes to learn to walk with prosthetics, much less run and sprint at a world-class level.

This man is the very definition of disabled as he has no legs, yet is being questioned rather than praised for overcoming seeming insurmountable odds.

It is difficult not to feel sorry for someone who faces criticism for simply being the best he can be and someone who has to defend himself every time he runs his fastest race.

Having known Pistorius for a number of years, I am always astounded by the manner he conducts himself and the way he patiently argues his case when he is inevitably asked that same question again and again.

He will point to the scientific evidence that was strong enough to have CAS overturn the IAAF decision and he will politely state that the basis of his triumph is athletic ability rather than two plastic legs.

Perhaps the best comment I have heard on the subject comes from the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Sir Philip Craven.

"There are very few athletes who have the capabilities to compete in both the Olympic and the Paralympics," Sir Philip told me when we spoke not too long ago.

"It is an extremely difficult task even for those top Paralympic athletes but it is all about personal choice and it is up to the individual athlete to decide what they want to do.

"I have no problem at all with athletes such as Oscar wanting to compete at the Olympics and if it can help break down the barriers between the able-bodied and the disabled, then that is fantastic."

Pistorius is not actually alone in his quest as double Paralympic sprint champion Jason Smyth (also pictured) has been named in the 17-strong Ireland team that will compete at the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu.

The 24-year-old visually-impaired sprinter from Derry in Northern Ireland will compete in his specialist event the 100m and just like the blade runner, he will have his critics.

Perhaps this is rather harsh when a blind man and a man with no legs prove they are legitimately as fast as the world's elite able-bodied athletes, but so be it.

Smyth's case is a little more straightforward than that of Pistorius but the fact is when it comes to the South African, we may never really know if he does actually have an unfair advantage.

The only way to find out would be cutting the legs off all the sprinters out there and seeing if they get faster on blades.

That is a trade I'm sure none of them would want to make but I'm sure Pistorius would love the reverse scenario for himself.

For my money, I feel the only advantage Pistorius' disability has afforded him is the relentless drive and desire needed to approach the accomplishments of his able-bodied peers.

But the simple fact is that Pistorius IS allowed to compete in able-bodied event and he will continue to do so until further notice.

And if it is good enough for the authorities, then Oscar Pistorius should be allowed to compete in able-bodied competition.

Should Oscar Pistorius be allowed to compete in able-bodied competition? Vote here.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames and insideworldparasport

Like the dog that did not bark in the night in the Sherlock Holmes mystery,The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of the most fascinating aspects of the FIFA crisis is that one group has said nothing: the players.

It is astonishing to consider, given all that has been written about the problems of FIFA, that there is very little about what the players think. Their silence has been stunning.

Without the players, there can be no game and the fact that they have had nothing to say about this, the greatest crisis to face the governing body of the world game, shows how sport, for all the talk that it is a business, is not really a business. And why it may prove so difficult to restructure an organisation like FIFA and make sure it is fit for purpose.

One current player is an exception to this: David Beckham. He has confessed how sickened he has been to learn of what is happening in FIFA. But this is a rather special case. He was a prominent part of the England 2018 bid. Just before the bid, by which time FIFA was mired in the current crisis with much talk of bid corruption, he made very many complimentary remarks about FIFA. This included expressing certainty that, despite all that was being said in the media, he felt FIFA would not be affected. He clearly feels let down and, like many in the England bid, he feels FIFA executive members were not upfront when they said they would support England.

And certainly Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has been vocal both about FIFA and Sepp Blatter, the FIFA President. But then Rummenigge is now a football administrator and has an agenda. He runs one of Europe's most prestigious clubs, Bayern Munich, and his agenda is that of the top clubs in Europe who feel they provide the players for world football, but are not given a say in the running of the world game. It is clear he intends to make this crisis into a weapon that could put clubs, the paymasters of the players, at the centre of world football.

But there are many other players we should have heard from. Nobody more than Pelé. For all the considerable claims of Diego Maradona, Pelé will always be the greatest player the game has ever produced. Since his retirement from the game, he has been active in the sport and for a time was even Brazil's Minister of Sport with a mission to reform and renovate his country's football. And it is Pelé who christened football with that wonderful name: the beautiful game. Yet, as this beautiful game has been mired in scandal, Pelé's silence is eloquent.


Pelé had a wonderful chance to present to the world what he makes of the FIFA scandal. Within days of the draw for the 2014 World Cup being held in his own country, there he was in London promoting Cosmos, the New York club that he finished his career with back in the 1970s. The club is to be re-incarnated, a suitably lavish Opus book about the club will be published and there was Pelé on the stage at London's Dorchester hotel to promote it all.

Like all such events, it was carefully marshalled, but those who had hoped that Pelé would share his thoughts on what is wrong with the world game and, in particular, the activities of its beleaguered executive members were to be disappointed.

Pelé was asked about Ricardo Teixeira, President of the Brazilian football confederation, of the 2014 World Cup organising committee and former son-in-law of FIFA president, João Havelange. Teixeira, a member of the FIFA executive, had allegations made about him by Lord Triesman during the England bid. During the World Cup draw in Brazil there were protests against Teixeira.

But Pelé could not be more diplomatic. "Everybody has their enemies; sometimes you don't even know who they are. It's the same with Teixeira." He even insisted that despite reports in the media, he never had any problems with him: "A lot of papers say I have a fight with Teixeira, it's not true – I am OK with him." And as far as Pelé was concerned, the problems of Blatter and FIFA was, like that of Teixeira, all cooked up in the media. "I think we can't worry about Teixeira and his problems with the media, after all, it's the same with Mr Sepp Blatter in FIFA."

What makes all this surprising is that back in 1998, when Lennart Johansson stood for the Presidency of FIFA against Sepp Blatter, Pelé was for Johansson. The Swede made much of the fact that he saw Pelé as an ally in pointing FIFA in a new direction away from the Havelange years of commercialism and not enough transparency and accountability.

Pelé's problems with the then FIFA President João Havelange had been well advertised. They dated back to the 1994 US World Cup Draws. Pelé could not do enough to support Johansson and nailed his colours to the mast when FIFA held the elections at its congress in Paris days before the 1998 tournament began. Then, as Havelange looked on, Pelé spoke in words that could only have been a rebuke for the FIFA that Havelange had built.

This is what Pelé said, "I have met Kings and Queens, Presidents and stars in my travel around the world. But I have never met anyone who cares more for the honesty and transparency of the sport of football as my friend Johansson. I hope deeply in my heart that he becomes the next President of FIFA." He did not mention Havelange or Blatter, but in his speech Pelé went on to talk about transparency, democracy and accountability, code words meant to convey that Blatter as Havelange's successor could not bring them about. World football needed Johansson if it wanted a transparent FIFA.

In the 13 years since Blatter beat Johansson, the need for transparency and democracy within FIFA has become all the greater, as the current crisis so obviously demonstrates. So why is Pelé silent? The cynic in me thinks that Pelé feels creating waves will do no good. Brazil's problems in organising the 2014 World Cup have been well documented and the country's President, Mrs Dilma Rousseff (pictured below with Blatter), has now asked the great man to be on the committee and help make it, as Pelé puts it, "a nice World Cup." So why spoil it by taking a stand on the nastiness in FIFA?


But Pelé's refusal also points to the dysfunctional nature of sport. During their career, players perform on the field of play, but off it they are told they must keep away from what the men in suits are doing.

Consider English rugby. That is also going through a crisis, although not one of corruption. But it has been dreadfully mismanaged. Indeed, some would say the administration at Twickenham is in melt down. This has seen John Steele, the chief executive, sacked; Martyn Thomas, the chairman, forced to step down; and a confidential report saying "trust has broken down within the RFU". But Martin Johnson, the England manager, is sure that it will make no difference to England's chances in the World Cup, which starts in New Zealand in September.

His preparations are complete and he is certain his players have not given a moment's thought to what the men in suits are doing. "It is really far removed from the players. It's not going on at their club to whom they're contracted. They come and play for England and want to get in the World Cup squad. Their concerns are: what am I doing today? What's the training? What's for dinner?"

Johnson, who led England to rugby glory as captain back in 2003, is sure that was the case even when he was a player.

Yet a crisis like this requires those who have played at the game at the highest level, or are even now playing, to tell us what they think is wrong with their game, what they feel should be done about it and how they think it can be reformed. In the case of FIFA this is particularly important.

The situation is not dissimilar to a factory which is not productive. Had FIFA been an industrial unit, the shop floor workers would not require much encouragement to tell us what is wrong. Players are football's shop floor workers. What is more, some of the higher-profile players are like pop stars in a band. A factory worker may fear for his job, sporting pop stars are not that exposed. By refusing to tell us what they feel what is wrong with the game, we are missing a very important voice.

If they do not know what is wrong, then something is badly awry. But if they do know what is wrong, as I suspect they do, but do not want to tell us, then those of us who are outsiders can only guess at the defects that need remedying.

Their silence cannot help the real reform of FIFA, which we all want.

Mihir Bose is one of the world's most astute observers on politics in sport and, particularly, football. He formerly wrote for The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph and was formerly the BBC's head sports editor. Follow Mihir on twitter.

www.mihirbose.com

I tried to get into the beach volleyball on Tuesday afternoon.

It was an impulse thing: a test event for the Olympics' ultimate good-time sport suddenly seemed strangely alluring in a city enduring very bad times.

I regret to report that I didn't get in.

On approaching the box office, I was told that the event had sold out (kudos to the organisers).

And when I tried to go the media route, a nice woman called Sarah very properly (and apologetically) advised me that she couldn't let me in as I had neither my passport nor driving-licence with me.

But while I missed out on the bikinis (honest), the afternoon provided an opportunity for observation and all kinds of food for thought.

To cover the most prosaic issue first: as I scrunched around the blue perimeter fence on Horse Guards Parade's ochre-coloured gravel, the temporary venue seemed to be operating smoothly.

One of the features I hadn't expected, at the venue's south-east corner was a big, plastic watermills.net drinking-water butt in British racing green.

But things like phones (Cisco) and computers (Acer) seemed to be branded by the appropriate Olympic partner and the main sound, punctuated by bursts of applause and energetic music, was the hum of Aggreko generators.

Visa branding was very prominent too, including along what looked like the top net cord of the warm-up courts.

Omega was also visible via a digital clock on the Mall linking Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace.

This famous pink street was otherwise decked out with Union Jacks offset by the heavy late-summer foliage of majestic plane trees.

My perambulations also brought home to me what a seriously strange Olympic venue this will be.

While behind the screens, scantily-clad athletes played ball in the sand (or so I must presume), off-court the Horse Guards appeared to be operating much as usual, with a gold-helmeted, red-tunicked figure in thigh-length riding boots with a sword going through his jerky, ritualistic, guard-y motions for the benefit of the tourists.

A sign at the entrance to the square meanwhile urged us to "Visit the Household Cavalry Museum", although quite how that one slipped past the International Olympic Committee's famously vigilant sponsorship police, I am not at all sure.

The venue also, unusually, features offensive weaponry in the form of two pretty fearsome looking cannons parked on the square's east side.

One of them, presented by Spain to commemorate the raising of the siege of Cadiz, is angled perfectly, its barrel supported by metal dragons, to lob a hefty cannon-ball past the tapering, stainless-steel floodlight pylons slap bang into the playing area.

The other, a so-called "Turkish Gun" constructed in the Royal Carriage Department Dartford, is equally impressive with lion's-head wheel-hubs and a crocodile motif.

However, I was unable to decipher further details from an accompanying plaque, something that should be rectified if the weapon is to remain in situ for next year.

The strangest thing, though, was that this sleepy, thoroughly pleasant little test event was going on at all when considerable tracts of the city had just witnessed what my evening paper was describing as the "worst scenes since the blitz".


I had to keep pinching myself at the sheer normality of the recumbent forms soaking up the sun in the well-tenanted green-and-white-striped deck-chairs in neighbouring St James' Park, at the meandering tourists, at the deadpan announcer telling ticket-holders that once inside the venue, they would not be permitted to leave and re-enter.

There was a police presence, but it was suitably low-key, with the officers possibly reflecting on where else they might be spending the afternoon.

The only hint I detected that these are terrible days in the capital is when I overheard a supervisor assuring staff that if any of them felt uncomfortable and wished to go home early, he perfectly understood.

On one level, of course, this is reassuring, since it suggests that nothing, but nothing can knock London out of its Olympic stride.

On the other hand it signifies a disconnect in UK society upon which it is perhaps best not to dwell for too long in this particular article.

I snapped myself out of it by considering which of the many statues in the vicinity had the best view of the action.

Down by the Downing Street garden wall, Kitchener gazed on in the general direction of the arena, looking understandably quizzical.

The mounted figures of Roberts and Wolseley, to the east, enjoyed a grandstand view.

So too, from on top of his massive column up a stairway on the other side of the Mall did Frederick Duke of York who is billed as Commander in Chief of the British Army from 1795-1809 and 1811-1827, prompting the question, 'What can have happened in 1810?'

Unfortunately, the recently-arrived waving figure of Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet cosmonaut, has no sort of view.

Nor, from his plinth near the Old Admiralty Building, does the tricorned Captain James Cook.

Indeed, the great explorer and navigator has his back turned on proceedings.

Not very Yorkshire, that beach volleyball lark, clearly.

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. He is regular columnist for insidethegames and insideworldfootbal. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed by clicking here 

A friend emails from secure, sanitised Singapore: "What the hell is happening over there? Will it be safe to come to the Olympics?"

A good question and one that unhesitatingly I would have answered in the affirmative this time last week.

But after the horrific events of the past few nights I am not so sure.

Who would have dreamed that when London won the Games in Singapore six years ago that just under a year out from the Opening Ceremony London 2012 would have disturbing echoes of Mexico City 1968 and Seoul 1988 when rioting was a similar prelude to the Olympics?

Of course there is every hope, indeed every chance, that all will be sweetness and light when the Games get under way but there can be no doubt that what has been occurring in the streets of tinder-box Tottenham, Clapham, Peckham, Brixton, Croydon and elsewhere in Greater London - not to mention Hackney, a javelin's throw from Olympic heartland itself - is a matter of deep embarrassment and concern.

Both for London's Olympic organisers and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

London Riots: Worst Civil Unrest in Memory as City Gears Up for 2012 Olympics

The above is the banner headline from the Hollywood Reporter, one of scores which have swept across the United States this week. Similar scary reports of the riots created headlines, and editorial comment in  Australia, India, Jamaica, indeed, just about every county in the world sending athletes to the Games.

Especially France, where you can bet there were were smirks on the faces of quite a few Parisians.


And while at the IOC they were predictably trotting out the "we have every confidence it will be all right on the night" reassurances (after all, what else can they say?) you can bet there were some furrowed brows when they read the following observation from a former Metropolitan Police Commander, John O'Connor.

"This is just a glimpse into the abyss. Someone's pulled the clock back and you can look and see what's beneath the surface. And what with the Olympic Games coming this doesn't bode very well for London."

Of all the things that could happen in the run-up to 2012 (overspending, construction delays, transportation problems with bolshie union boss Bob Crow and his merry men yet to swing into action – or inaction), this unquestionably is the worst case scenario.

Hopefully London will get over it, as Mexico City did despite the despicable slaughtering of 300 demonstrating students in the Place of the Three Cultures. And as Seoul did when South Korea´s military leaders didn't take kindly to the community's reluctance to host the Games and brutally tear-gassed those protesting over the Government displacing 720,000 citizens to make way for Olympic visitors.

No-one is bracketing the London riots with those two shameful happenings (incidentally in both instances the Games themselves subsequently passed off without further major disturbances).


Yet the images that have gone around the world from London of burning buildings, widespread looting and vandalism, police charging in riot gear, mass arrests and now talk of the use of plastic bullets and water cannon, has tragically undermined the superb work of Lord Coe and his team in getting the city into decent shape for the Games.

Now that same city has been despoiled by criminality and a total disregard for law and order.

Ok, so I may be writing from the safe vantage point of a town in Surrey where the only likely riot would be if the local Waitrose was to run out of Sauvignon blanc, but perhaps the most worrying aspect of all this is the claim that London's police were undermanned and under-prepared for such an eventuality.

One wonders how, if a form of "terrorism" from within could not be contained, how they will manage should the real thing strike from the outside during the Olympics.

The one piece of good fortune is that this has happened a year, and not a week, from the Games.

At least there is the chance of obviously much-needed re-appraisal.

For the fervent prayer has to be that all that is burning in London next July will be the Olympic Flame.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

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.

The 17th IOC World Olympic Collectors Fair and the 30th Olympin Festival has been taking place in conjunction with the 32nd National Sports Collectors Convention in Rosemont near Chicago and I was lucky enough to go.

This event was the first time that the prestigious World Olympic Collectors Fair was held in North America. Not only that but in conjunction with the 2011 National Sports Collectors Convention, the World Olympic Collectors Fair included Olympic pins, mascots, posters, prize medals, commemorative medals, stamps, coins, programmes, tickets, uniforms, Games-used equipment, and much more. There was something for everyone from beginner to advanced collector.

I, however, was there for the pins.

It is easy to see why pin collecting is so exciting. I didn't believe I would get sucked into it so quickly. I went straight to the Olympin table on my arrival and was swept away by Olympin member Pam Litz, who happily started my collection and traded for our limited edition insidethegames One Year To Go pins. I thank her for that opportunity, without it I would never have understood what it is about pin trading that is so exciting. She was so passionate and fanatical about that, it was hard not to be sucked in. Our transaction complete, I was on my way to becoming a pinhead.

I moved from table to table, collecting people and pins. The willing to help me out on my journey into collecting astounded me, each of the traders bringing new information and new pins into my experience. Armed with my starter pins, I've ended my journey today with some great pins.

Speaking with the "Pin Doctor" Janet Grissom about the pins I asked her what gets people excited, what that "top pin" is. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the Lime Jell-O pin proved highly popular. Everybody wants that "top pin" and it's hard to know what will or won't be popular in London 2012. Her suggestion for Olympic pin collecting is to keep an eye - and ear - out for what people are asking for. The one that is mentioned the most is likely to be the most popular of the Games.

Having thought about pins and the passion that everyone in Chicago had, it's a little disappointing to know that I only got excited about pins in these past few days. The London 2012 pins are beautiful, some of the concepts are great, but it's true that everyone doesn't have the same enthusiasm in Britain yet for the London 2012 pins that they did for the Winter Games in Salt Lake City, 2002 or Vancouver, 2010. I'm unsure why this is, but it is evident. The Olympin members assured me that pin collecting will hit our UK shores with a bang and will be as fantastic as in every other Games. I hope that the United States and China are prepared to bring pin-trading to the UK and that we embrace it.


Here are some of the best tips on trading from the Olympin members to make sure you make the most of the opportunity that London 2012 will offer:

1.  The underground stations nearest the Olympic Village will be the hub for trading outside the Olympic Park itself.

2.  Decide what you want to trade. There are lots of different types for pins; media, mascots, sponsor, National Olympic Committee (NOC) pins etc, so stick to one and use other pins to trade for the ones you want.

3.  The NOC pins are the hardest ones to get. The Olympin members have worked for years to get their NOC collections going. A good tip is to speak to athletes, ask for autographs etc. They are likely to give you an NOC pin just for taking the time to speak to them.

4.  If you want to trade with Americans, (and we're not sure why this is the case) Canadian pins are a very popular trader. So keep an eye out for them.

5.  Don't look professional. You'll be more likely to get a great trade and have a better experience doing so if you're just wearing your pins. Buy a hat and put them all on there to display!

6.  Don't be pressured into a trade you don't want to do. If you need more information on any pin don't be afraid to ask. Pinheads will tell you as much as they can about any pin and are always happy to help.

7.  Keep an eye out for people selling cheap pins. Buy as many as you can as these make great trades. They are also great for people starting out in pin collecting.

8.  Finally, have lots of fun with it. You will get sucked in by it, believe me, and it is incredibly fun when you do a great trade.

I look forward to experiencing the pin craze in London 2012 with all these people again.

And guess what, I got that Lime Jell-O pin!

Rebecca Fisher is a marketing assistant for insidethegames. Check out our pin and collecting website insidegamescollecting , join our forum and Facebook group to chat and trade online

You have to listen very carefully if you want to hear what David Rudisha has to say. This 22-year-old product of Kenya's Rift Valley, who broke the world 800 metres record not once but twice in the space of a week last year, speaks ever so softly; but his words are worth straining for.

At the press conference held in the Croydon Park Hotel yesterday to publicise the two-day Samsung Diamond League meeting at Crystal Palace, Rudisha recalled how the man who held the 800m record for just over 16 years until 1997 had inspired him, both indirectly and directly, to claim it for himself.

We are talking here, naturally, of Sebastian Coe.

In recent years, Rudisha said he had studied a number of Coe's races on YouTube to enhance his career. The two men met for the first time last June at the Samsung Diamond League meeting in Oslo, where the Kenyan beat Coe's 31-year-old stadium - and initially world - record of 1min 42.33sec, recording 1:42.04 to win a monumental race against Sudan's double World Indoor champion Abubaker Kaki, whom he meets for the first time this season today at the Aviva London Grand Prix.

"Sebastian congratulated me and told me, 'You are the future of the 800 metres'," Rudisha recalled. "He told me that if I trained hard and kept focused, I was capable of breaking the world record.

"I was really happy and felt encouraged. I felt that if he thought I was capable of achieving that, I would keep it to myself and take it into my training and work harder."


Looking forward to London 2012, which Coe has played a key part in delivering in his capacity as chairman of the organising committee, Rudisha added: "It's so special that the Olympics will be in London and in the country of such a great athlete as Sebastian Coe. I think it will also boost me. He is now my friend and we have been talking together and he has been encouraging me. Being there is going to be very special."

But if Coe has played an inspirational role as far as Rudisha is concerned, the same turns out to be true for Kaki.

Speaking to Kaki's coach, Jama Aden, before the press conference in which Rudisha was involved, it became clear that the double Olympic 1500m champion had also played a crucial part in shaping the attitude and approach of the Kenyan's greatest rival.

Although he was a bronze medallist over 1500m at the 2005 World Youth Championships, Kaki - who is six months younger than Rudisha - has not run the longer distance for many years.

But at last month's Diamond League meeting in Monaco Kaki produced a startling result as he came third in the 1500m behind two of the event's leading Kenyans, Silas Kiplagat and Nixon Chepseba, in a time of 3:31.76.

It was a lot faster than Kaki had been expecting. It was certainly a lot faster than Aden had expected.

"I thought maybe Kaki would do 3.34, 3.35," Aden said. "I didn't expect him to do 3.31."

It was immediately after this race that Kaki reminded Aden of the time in 2008 where they had shared a car with Coe as they travelled to a press conference before the DN Galan meeting in Stockholm.

"Kaki remembered how Seb had asked about his time for 800," said Aden. "And when he told him he had run 1.42.69, which was the world junior record, Seb had said 'In London you should do the 800 and 1500'."

"Kaki never mentioned that conversation until after Monaco. It must have been in the back of his mind all that time."

And doubling up at London 2012 is exactly what Kaki intends to do. The Coe factor, it seems, goes on and on.


While Kaki will be well aware of how difficult it will be to prevent Rudisha winning the titles he is fixed on at this season's World Championships and at London 2012, he will also be well aware of the difficulties looming ahead for him in the metric mile next year and beyond.

Not least because he trains regularly in the Aden group with the 16-year-old whom their coach described to me this week as "the future of 1500 metres running" - Hamza Driouch, who won the B race at last month's Stockholm Diamond League in a personal best of 3min 35.73sec.

Aden, not a man given to hyperbole, compares his young Qatari athlete to the man who still holds the mile and 1500m world records in retirement, Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj.

If the time comes when young Hamza starts to bear that bold prediction out, what are the odds, I wonder, against him mentioning Seb Coe?

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Sepp Blatter always complains that he is a leader who is not as powerful as his title of FIFA President may suggest. For a start, he is in the odd position that he cannot choose his own cabinet, something that Barack Obama or David Cameron would find intolerable.

So Blatter's cabinet, the FIFA Executive Committee, are elected by the Confederations and foisted on him. There is nothing Blatter can do about that. He has to live with their choices.

To change the rules of FIFA so that members of the Executive are directly elected by the FIFA Congress, as Blatter himself is, would be a major remaking of world football. That is beyond Blatter. For a start, it would be opposed by the four British Home Nations who elect their own FIFA vice-president. The Swiss, being the shrewd politician he is, will not go down that road.

But the corruption crisis has provided Blatter with a historic opportunity; it has changed FIFA's world. Until now, changes to FIFA's executive were as a result of confederation elections. The crisis has seen four FIFA Executive members, including three Confederation Presidents - Jack Warner, Mohammed Bin Hammam and Reynald Temarii - forced out.

Blatter must now tame the Confederations and make sure that they have the same ethical rules as FIFA itself. If Blatter is serious about making FIFA fit for purpose, he has also to do the same with the Confederations. FIFA cannot be moral if the Confederations are not. There are signs that Blatter intends to rise to the challenge. FIFA's intention to probe members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) involved in the Mohammed Bin Hammam vote-buying exercise clearly signifies that.

There are, of course, problems. For a start, not all members of the CFU are members of FIFA. So FIFA's powers to sanction those CFU members, many of them with French connections, are non-existent. That explains why FIFA's letter asking for explanations has not gone to all members of the CFU. But, even with this important qualification, there is a lot Blatter can do if he has the will. However, he will first have to decouple himself from the legacy of his mentor Joao Havelange (pictured with Blatter).


Havelange, who with the help of Horst Dassler shaped modern FIFA, used the confederations as vote banks. As long as they voted for the Brazilian, they could do much as they pleased in their own backyard. Havelange owed his election victory over Sir Stanley Rous in 1974 to the shrewd way he mobilised the African vote. He knew the Africans were concerned about South Africa and its apartheid policies and promised to make sure that white South Africa would be kept out of FIFA. Rous, the paternalist English gentleman, who liked taking cold baths in the morning and quite liked old white South Africa as many Englishmen of his era did, would not make such pledges. The result was that he could only wonder why his African FIFA children, as he saw many of them, deserted him.

Blatter learnt at the feet of Havelange how to use confederations for securing elections and has been masterful in this. In 1998 Lennart Johansson, then President of UEFA, thought victory was certain, given that he had the support of his own European and the African confederations. You did not even need to have Maths A level to work out that such a combination is unbeatable. But Blatter detached enough votes from Africa - and some from Europe including England - to turn the tables on the Swede.

Blatter's first term as President was made difficult by the opposition he faced from Johansson and his UEFA colleagues on the FIFA executive. His answer was to go to the 2002 UEFA Congress and secure the election to FIFA of many of his men, including Michel Platini. I can still recall the joy of Blatter's men as the election results emerged and Johansson's closest allies were defeated. And this was a Congress held in Johansson's Swedish backyard and where Johansson was himself re-elected unanimously with acclamation.


That year, even more dramatically, Blatter defeated Issa Hayatou, the President of the African Confederation, securing more votes from Africa than the African.

In a way, Bin Hammam, who had worked so hard for Blatter in 1998 and 2002, was trying to employ the Blatter technique. Indeed, he says so himself in his letter to the Asian Football Federation where he protests his innocence and vows to fight the life ban. But, even if we accept that Bin Hammam did not try to bribe the Caribbean Union members, he was definitely attempting to raid Blatter's vote bank. Just as Blatter had done to Johansson and Hayatou, Bin Hammam tried to do the same to Blatter.

But now that this has exploded in FIFA's face, Blatter has to show how he can reform the organisation. It is not enough for there to be a powerful Ethics Committee at FIFA headquarters. There must be similar ethics committees at all the confederations. In addition, confederation elections must be monitored and shown to be above board. If only a fraction of the stories we hear about how such elections are organised are true, then there is much cleaning up to be done.


Blatter will not find it easy to carry out such reforms. However, if he wants to leave a legacy of a clean FIFA to his successor (in all probability Michel Platini) then he has to do that. Otherwise, the scandals of the past year will recur. The result will be that FIFA will not have the sort of cathartic cleansing operation that the IOC had after Salt Lake City.

Blatter may argue that Juan Antonio Samaranch did not have to worry about confederations. But then Blatter has always seen himself as the supreme sports politician. Now is his great opportunity to show that he can do more than just win elections: that he can clean up FIFA and the confederations.

Mihir Bose is one of the world's most astute observers on politics in sport and, particularly, football. He formerly wrote for The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph and was formerly the BBC's head sports editor. Follow Mihir on twitter.

www.mihirbose.com

Nestling in a corner of my study, under a dog-eared poster depicting The Thrilla in Manila, and a framed photograph of all-time sporting idol Muhammad Ali standing over a stricken Sonny Liston and mouthing "Get up you bum get, up you bum and fight" are two Olympic Torches.

Of the multitude of souvenirs gleaned over half a century of sportswriting assignments, including assorted bric-a-brac, memorabilia and about a thousand plastic media accreditations (one day I'll write a book entitled "Forgive us our press passes"), these are the most treasured.

Particularly those Olympic torches.

I have been fortunate enough to take part in the last two Olympic Torch relays' - I would say "run" but any who observed my efforts will dispute that description.

As insidethegames editor Duncan Mackay, another journo who has shared the experience of being a torchbearer will testify, it is both uplifting and highly emotional. Certainly among the most exhilarating moments of my life.

I must confess though that my conscience was searched long and hard before I accepted an invitation to run with the torch in China in 2008.

The Olympics has been awarded to the Chinese with the expressed hope that this would encourage them to improve human rights. Sebastian Coe has always said sport should be above politics, but the Chinese had been playing politics with the Games more than any previous host city, including Moscow, using them for cynical self-aggrandisement with barely a peep of protest from the International Olympic Committee.

But as I have always carried a torch for the Olympic ethos, I decided to play my run-on part, even though the doubts raged in my mind as to whether it was morally right.

Jacques Rogge had said the Olympics would open up China's doors to the world and I suppose to some degree they did. However, they simply remain ajar and human rights are still low on the agenda.


My turn came in the city of Xi'an in north-west China, ancient capital of the Tang Dynasty. I had been invited by Samsung, the technological giants and one of the principal Olympic sponsorship partners, after a similar invitation from the IOC four years earlier before the Athens Games, as a journalistic veteran of 10 Games.

I had no such qualms then, of course and by sheer chance, my leg happened to be in Harleyford Road, in Lambeth, where I was born. As it was virtually next door to the Oval, it was rather apt that I should hand over the torch to Ian Botham.

The reason for this self-indulgent reminiscing is that with under a year to go thoughts are now turning to London's Olympic Torch relay and the burning question, so to speak, is not so much who should run it in but who will light the flame.

The usual suspects have been trotted out - Steve Redgrave, Kelly Holmes, Chris Hoy, David Beckham (I kid you not), Seb Coe himself and young Tom Daley, among numerous other obvious luminaries.

Lord Coe, who has no say in the eventual choice, has ruled himself out but backs the claims for his mate Daley Thompson, though the bookies, who have installed Redgrave as clear favourite don't seem to rate his chances. Maybe Daley has upset too many blazers.

If running with the torch is a highly emotive experience then imagine what it must be like to actually light the flame.

Surely, the most moving flame lighting of all had to be Atlanta in 1966, when it was illuminated by the shaking hand of Parkinson's afflicted Ali. It was lump-in-throat time around the world, the most inspiring moment of an otherwise forgettable Games.

I have a hunch that London will also come up with something, and someone, different.

What or who I am not sure, but I'll happily make a suggestion.

How about Britain's oldest surviving Olympic double medallist?


Dorothy Tyler, who won high jump silver as 16-year-old schoolgirl Dorothy Odam in Berlin in 1936 and 12 years later, after the ravages of war, plus marriage and motherhood, did so again in London, may be a spry 91 but she is more than capable of stepping forward to light up London's Games after Redgrave et al have trotted the final few laps.

She is ready, no doubt willing and eminently able. Recently awarded an honorary doctorate by Leeds University she still plays golf near her home in Sanderstead, Surrey, and has won the national over-80s championship three times  "though since I had a stroke I only play three times a week".

Although Dorothy won the silver medal in Berlin, had the high jump countback rules been as they are today, she would have taken the gold. And in 1948, when, as mother of two small children she returned to compete at the London Olympics, it was those very same countback rules that denied her the gold once more. As the rules stand today, she would be a double Olympic champion and London's only athletics gold medallist of 1948.

During the war, Dorothy had served as a HGV lorry driver and as a physical training instructor with 617 Squadron - the Dambusters.

She won Empire Games golds in 1938 and 1950; having jumped 5ft at the age of 15, she continued competing and clearing that height for another 31 years, and was in Britain's Olympic teams in 1952 and 1956.

In 1939, her 1.66-metre jump was a world record and prompted one of the earliest sporting sex scandals.


Officials wrote to her saying that Dora Ratjen (pictured), from Germany, had jumped higher. "They told me I didn't hold the record and I wrote back to them saying 'She's not a woman, she's a man!'.

"They did some research and found 'her' working as a waiter called Hermann, who had earlier served in the Hitler Youth, so I got my world record back again."

She is still some feisty lady. A few years ago at an awards lunch in London, she told Dick Fosbury originator of The Flop, that his form of jumping was cheating. "You can't go over the bar head first," declared the arch exponent of the straddle.

Her memories of the "Nazi" Olympics remain vivid. In Berlin, she had nervelessly sidled up to Adolf Hitler at a party thrown for the women competitors by Joszef Goebbels, whom, she described as "bit of a womaniser".

And what did she make of the Fuehrer? "A little man in a big uniform."

"When we got there, there were 40-foot Nazi flags everywhere, everyone seemed to be in uniform. It was all very militaristic.

"We were staying in a large dormitory. The first morning, I was woken up by the sound of marching, and outside there were hundreds of Hitler Youth parading.

"When the German athletes saluted 'Heil Hitler', we all responded with 'Hail King George!'"


Personally, I'd love to see dear old Dot do the honours.

Failing that, we call always fall back on BoJo, though its odds on he'd be more likely to set his own haystack hair alight first.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire

Last Wednesday's one year to go celebrations provided a taste of the excitement to come next summer.

London 2012 is getting closer and the preparations of athletes and organisers are picking up pace.

On this day next year, we will see the first day of competition in the Velodrome, and Great Britain will be hoping their cycling heroes in Beijing can repeat that success to get the London party started.

What about the preparations of UK businesses?

In order to capitalise on any increase in demand and minimise disruption to operations, businesses must be ready.

But are they?

Deloitte asked 300 large UK businesses about how they were preparing for the opportunities and challenges from London 2012. We were encouraged to discover that 95 per cent of businesses have either started assessing or plan to assess the impact of the Games. Less encouraging was that 53 per cent have yet to start this process.

However, it is clear that businesses are waking up to the need to prepare and be ready for the Games. When we asked the same question last year, 56 per cent of companies said they had no intention of assessing the impact of the Games at all. Now it is just five per cent.


Businesses yet to start their Games readiness assessments should do so immediately - initially by gaining senior level buy-in for a Games readiness programme. This should be quickly followed by the appointment of a representative group from across the organisation to assess the risks and opportunities. Every business is different and should recognise its unique circumstances in its assessment - with industry, geography and competition among the key influencing factors.

Our research suggests that businesses have increased their level of understanding about the potential challenges they could face during Games time. Thirty seven per cent of companies are worried about the risk of a security incident, compared with 5.5 per cent last year, whilst 26 per cent are concerned by a potential lack of resources such as hotels (seven per cent last year). Eighteen per cent fear disruption to their supply chain (eight per cent last year) and just 3 per cent of businesses expect no disruption at all, a significant decrease on the 39 per cent of businesses who felt this way just 12 months ago.

The issue causing greatest concern to business is the potential unavailability of staff. Forty three per cent of companies cite this as a major concern ahead of the Games, compared with 23 per cent when asked last year.

Transport disruption is one possible cause of staff unavailability and businesses should use the Games as an opportunity to review and implement alternate sites, flexible and home working practices where feasible. This would be hugely beneficial to strengthening the long-term resilience of organisations, providing a legacy benefit from the Games, as well as helping reduce the strain on London's transport system.

Critical to developing an accurate understanding of all the potential impact areas is crafting a set of planning assumptions around transport and staff availability, supply chain, resources, security and technology. Organisations should not wait until hard data is available as this is likely to leave things too late.

With less than a year to go, it is encouraging to see improved business sentiment and awareness about the Games. However, this is tinged with a degree of caution in that most organisations have yet to understand fully the impact.

London 2012 is an immovable deadline, and time is starting to run out. The sooner businesses implement their Games readiness assessment with sufficient vigour, the sooner positive changes can be made. This will ensure adequate preparation in advance so the exciting opportunities of this sporting and cultural spectacular can be fully enjoyed.

Mark Naysmith is a director in the business continuity and resilience team at Deloitte, the official professional services provider to London 2012