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Archives for June 2010

From euphoria to despair

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Adrian Warner | 14:45 UK time, Wednesday, 30 June 2010

Ken Livingstone in Singapore on July 7 2005 giving 'the speech of his life'. Getty ImagesKen Livingstone walked into the lobby of the Swissotel in Singapore on the afternoon of July 7, 2005, carrying a shopping bag.

The former London Mayor should have been in a relaxed mood. He'd been celebrating in the vote for the 2012 Olympics until the early hours of the morning and had spent a relaxing day in the heat of Singapore, seven hours ahead of the UK.

Livingstone caught my eye as I was chatting and joking with Simon Clegg, the former chief executive of the British Olympic Association. The Mayor pulled Clegg aside and whispered something in his ear. It was only a few words but the former Army Major's face went very serious and Livingstone walked off briskly towards the lifts.

Clegg turned to me and said simply: "There's been an incident in London."

Within an hour of that moment, the mood in the lobby of the hotel changed from the euphoria of London's victory to despair.

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell had been sitting with journalists having a cup of tea and talking about the celebratory helicopter ride which was being planned over the Olympic site when the bid team returned to London.

She was soon taken aside by her aides and was briefed about the reports coming back from London.

I raced up to my hotel room for half an hour to see what 91Èȱ¬ World was reporting from London. It soon became clear that the city had been hit by coordinated bombings.

By the time I returned to the lobby, it was full of athletes and officials from the bid team, talking about their worries about London. Many simply couldn't believe what was happening.

Just a few hours previously, they had been at a open-air party at a Singapore restaurant watching TV pictures of the wild celebrations at Waterloo Station and Trafalgar Square. There had been so much pride in the bid team in pulling off a victory which meant so much at home.

Britain had hardly had time to enjoy the historic moment when it was dealing with a disaster. Rarely in the history of London has such sadness followed on so quickly from such joy.

I spent the next hours reporting the reaction from Singapore for my former newspaper, the Evening Standard. All the stories I had filed about London's celebrations for the early editions were ripped up and we started again with a newspaper with a completely different mood.

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Then Livingstone returned to the lobby for the first time. He was immediately surrounded by scores of TV cameramen. The Mayor had been in his hotel room for several hours coordinating London's response to the bombings by phone.

During a colourful career, the Labour politician has sometimes uttered the wrong words and got into trouble because of it. But on this desperate day, the Mayor produced the finest speech of his life.

Clearly shaking with a mixture of anger and nerves, he said: "I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.

"That isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith - it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other. I said yesterday to the International Olympic Committee, that the city of London is the greatest in the world, because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. They will stand together in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved and that is why I'm proud to be the mayor of that city."

2012's team headed back to a very different London to the one they had left. That day is often in the minds of officials as they prepare security for the Olympics.

of every Games since the terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

Despite 7/7, the Olympic world doesn't worry about the Games taking place in London any more than it would, had Paris or New York been given the event.

Strict security has been part of the Games for decades now. London will be no different.

But the memory of those 24 hours in Singapore will be in the minds of all of us who experienced them for the rest of our lives.

Mayor aims for total control of 2012 legacy

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Adrian Warner | 13:40 UK time, Tuesday, 15 June 2010

London Mayor Boris Johnson is set to take complete control over what will happen to the after the Games.

The Mayor today announced , including a reform of the (OPLC).

johnson_westfield.jpg

The OPLC was set up last year as a company half owned by the Mayor and half owned by the Government.

This meant that any major decision, such as the future of the main stadium, needed the approval of Johnson, the Olympics Minister and the Communities Secretary, who handles regeneration issues.

The new plans mean the Mayor has complete control over the OPLC which will be reformed as a Mayoral Development Corporation.

Forget all the names of these bodies.

What matters is that Johnson will now decide whether or whether it is going to become a new centre for pop concerts.

He has the only veto over any proposals put forward by legacy officials.

With this, of course, comes more risk for London. If everything goes wrong and London is left with a Park of white elephants, it is likely to be harder for Johnson to go begging to the Government for more cash to pay for the mess since Whitehall will have had no say in the decisions.

But it's not all negative. I understand the people in power in the Olympic Park Legacy Company agree with the move because it will make it much easier to negotiate deals.

Companies keen to invest in the Park won't have to go and get the Government's approval as well as the Mayor's.

So will it change the future of the Park?

Well, we know that Boris is more flexible on letting a football club into the stadium than his predecessor was.

We also know that he is determined to strike deals which work financially. Under these new plans, he is going to be even more determined to focus on the bottom line because he has total responsibility for the Park's future.

We'll have to see whether that means the promises of the bid - such as a major athletics legacy - will be watered down in the rush to make sure the Park doesn't lose money.

Post-Olympic interest in stadium is music to the ears

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Adrian Warner | 15:31 UK time, Tuesday, 8 June 2010

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One of the biggest questions hanging over London 2012 is what will happen to the AFTER the Games?

I've learned that a bidding war could be under way beween two giants in the music industry looking to turn the Olympic Park into one of the world's most sought after music venues.

We knew that , which runs the O2 and is the owner of the world's most profitable sports and entertainment venues, was in the market to take over the main stadium but I've learned that a company called is also interested.

This is a significant development because Live Nation is the world's biggest concert producer.

It's signed up major artists like Madonna, U2 and Lady Gaga but more importantly it runs about 140 venues around the world and puts on 20,000 concerts each year.

I've learned Live Nation is not just interested in taking over the main stadium it also wants to take over the handball indoor arena which would allow it to put concerts on, all year round.

This would turn this part of London into a music mecca.

What wants to do is get independent companies coming here and running these venues.

The danger is if you don't there's a drain on the taxpayer so it's manna from heaven to have two major international independent entertainment companies saying they're interested.

We also know that have but we also know it'll cost the club a lot of money to turn the Olympic Stadium into a football ground.

So, it may be that the solution is that an entertainment company comes in, takes over the whole park and turns into a fascinating place that people want to go to long after the Games have ended.

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