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Thursday, July 26, 2012

The Olympics: Then and Now




This piece of mine appears in the Sunday Express.

Neil Clark looks at how London 2012 is a far cry from the charming Games we managed to host in the capital 64 years ago.

THERE is now less than a week to go before “The Greatest Show On Earth” begins. This year’s Olympics will be the biggest, the most expensive and easily the most publicised in history. So am I the only one who wishes we had a very different Olympic Games in prospect, such as the one held in London in 1948?

The 1948 Games were described by Janie Hampton, author of The Austerity Olympics, as “one of the most inexpensive and unpretentious Olympiads of the 20th century”.

You can read the whole of the piece here.

On the subject of the 2012 Olympics, you can read my piece on ten of the world’s most fabulous sports stars who’ll be appearing over the next two weeks, here. 

While here you can me discussing on BBC Radio Five Live as to whether there are any ‘dead certs’ for Olympic gold medals. (The item starts at around 1hr 20mins into the programme).



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

­From the RT article:

"The group consisted of over 40 individuals, including Syrian defector generals and members of the Muslim Brotherhood. They learned economics, law, security practices and other areas of governance, which would be needed in the transition period".

No prizes for guessing which sort of 'economics' they are being taught.

- questionnaire

Vladimir Gagic said...

I have to say despite the problems, I love the Olympics. And I can't even watch them in the US on tv or online because I dont pay for cable.

Are you going to watch Serbia play Hungary in water polo tomorrow?

Neil Clark said...

questionnaire: absolutely.
vladimir: it's appalling that Games are only on cable in the US.
Yes- will be watching the water polo, should be great.