APPENDIX 5
Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the British Olympic Association
1. The British Olympic Association (BOA)
is disappointed by the decision not to host the World Athletics
Championships in London after the abandonment of plans for a national
athletics stadium at Picketts Lock. The BOA is concerned about
the implications for future bids to host major international sporting
events (including the Olympic Games) in the United Kingdom—particularly
in London.
2. This decision now seems likely to result
in the loss of the right to stage the 2005 World Athletics Championships
in the UK—an event that was secured for London through a
successful bidding process in April 2000.
3. The Chief Executive of the BOA, Mr Simon
Clegg, stated in a press release on 4 October 2001:
"If this is the case we will have deprived
British athletes of competing in the world's third largest sporting
event on home soil with all the competitive advantages that this
entails. In addition we will have lost the opportunity of demonstrating
to the world that we have the ability to stage major sporting
events. Coming so soon after the Wembley fiasco it further damages
our international sporting reputation at a time when results at
the 2000 Olympic Games suggested we could once again aspire to
being a major sporting nation".
4. The BOA have spent the last four years
engaged in preparatory work assessing the requirements, strategic
planning and viability of a future Olympic Games bid for London.
The loss of the World Athletics Championships clearly hampers
any future Olympic bid from this country. However, the BOA will
continue to work in conjunction with the GLA and Government in
pursuance of our aspirations to bring the Olympic Games back to
this country. This work will, in the short-term, focus on a cost-benefit
analysis of a London Games.
5. It has been the BOA's approach to this
project to be thorough and methodical and to benefit from early
preparation. This is to create an environment where decisions
can be taken by all key stakeholders with a clear understanding
of the issues involved, the requirements needed, the cost implications
and the potential benefits to all sections of the community in
both sporting and social terms. What is clear is that to have
any chance of success, there must be unanimous, unambiguous and
unequivocal support from all the key stakeholders in the process.
6. The BOA reiterates its position that
it will only allow a bid to go forward if it has a realistic chance
of success in a competitive bidding environment. Such success
will depend on two critical components—the viability of
the bid and the ability to convince the IOC electorate.
7. In this respect the Picketts Lock decision
may affect the way the electorate (the voting members of the IOC
who represent the international sporting community) view British
sport and, in particular, perceive the commitment from Government
to invest the resources necessary to stage a successful Olympic
Games in the UK. The BOA will have to make a measured assessment
of this in due course. In this respect the decision to sacrifice
the World Athletics Championships is extremely unhelpful.
9 October 2001
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