Ambition to be ‘sporting capital of the world’ comes as mayor’s office reports that major events including Champions League final and NFL games generated £230m for the capital in 2024

by TimesandSundayTimes

23 comments

  1. Great Bid, they should propose phone snatching to be included among the official competitions.

  4. I’d obviously love it if it happened but I think it’s too soon, plenty of other cities either haven’t hosted or haven’t hosted in a while.

  5. Why not?

    Most of the infrastructure is already there. We’ll need new athletes housing – that could be temporary or like last time, converted into ordinary housing

    Probably need a few temporary venues, Paris was successful in this and I’m sure we had one or two in 2012

    Seems like an overall win to me

  6. Can the clown just stick to the basics i.e. Northern Line, Bus Route 221 etc, and not advocate for another blasted Olympics that destroyed tourism for the summer,the last time it was held

  7. I mean everything is there already. As long as he doesn’t try to make anyone swim in the Thames we should be fine.

  9. Nah I’m good. We just had one and I don’t want to pay for another.

  10. 2012 was absolutely outstanding, I hope the bid comes to fruition. 

  12. The atmosphere during the 2012 Olympics was amazing. It was lovely and I’d love for it to be here again.

    But… young people weren’t paying £2k per month for a shitty flat nor were utilities £3k+ a year.

    If people – young people especially – feel like there is splurging on unnecessaries while they struggle on basics, I’m not sure how popular it would be.

    And yes I know that mayoral (GLA) budget ≠ council budgets ≠ macroeconomy. It’s optics though..

  13. This would be 28 years later, like we aren’t even half way between 2012 and 2040, it’s that far away.

    The cost should be pretty low as the major venues could rehost.

    Housing is probably not as much of an issue as you’d think – with that long to plan, all you need is a few developments that would be completed around then to be Athletes first, and then converted to homes after.

    Might as well throw their hat in the ring and see what happens.

  14. I would be up for it. Most infrastructure is in place now, barring some refurbishment and a new athletes village, which like time can then be re-purposed for housing etc. Otherwise the long overdue regeneration of the Meridian Water site could be kickstarted by this?

  15. If they have an electric bike phone/ bag/ thief / snatching race, London competitors will win hands down..
    Seriously, London needs a clean up, funds spent on the police force (currently cutting numbers due to budget) not the olympics. Khan vanity project not appropriate until this city gets sorted.

  16. 2040 too early, need to spread it around the world or make it hosted in dual cities . 2064 should be about right for London again

  17. Interesting idea and as others have said, most of the infrastructure is already there. I don’t know a lot about the typical time between the same city hosting the Olympics, but 28 years does seem rather short!

  19. It cost each London council tax payers an extra £250 per year added to their individual bill, for about 5 years. So £1250 out of your pocket.

    Then the mayor decided that because we’d already been paying that amount, he’d keep charging us that extra each year but called in something else.

    So far the olympics in 2012 has personally cost me and every council tax payer in London about £3000.

  20. Why London? Why not several cities in the uk? Spread it out

  21. We haven’t recovered financially from
    The last one. Estimated ended up 3 folds and they had to sell land to make up for it, and still haven’t made up for it. Despite lottery and government helping out

    Only beneficiaries are big businesses and maybe some small ones like little private shops and taxis

  22. I loved the 2012 games and I love the Olympics generally. They give such a warm feeling of the world coming together.

    But reliving that is not worth the cost.

    Few to none of the promised benefits of 2012 have come about. Stratford/East London has just become more gentrified. The facilities built are nowhere near used enough (except in the case of the stadium) even by locals and kids to justify the cost of building them, and there’s been zero tourism boost.

    It was a great two weeks but the only lasting legacy was the bill. Sure it would cost much less this time with venues to reuse but even then to what benefit.

    I don’t wanna be a Scrooge but there’s nothing special about putting on the games in any city that you can’t do at any random neutral venue. That amazing opening ceremony – could have happened in any modern stadium and looked exactly the same- all the brilliant memories of team GB athletes winning in shiny modern venues – could have happened anywhere in the world. It’s just window dressing. You don’t need host cities to give an identity to the games.

  23. Great idea. Could even be sooner.
    The impact it’s had on east London is almost beyond imagination.
    2012 was a great time for the UK. We need more of those days.

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