NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Sport / Olympics

Dylan Cleaver: Getting the legacy right... that's going to be the tricky bit

NZ Herald
27 Jul, 2012 05:30 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

An aerial view of the London 2012 Olympic Park, with the Olympic stadium top left, with the Accor Mittal 'Orbit' Tower, centre. Photo / AP.

An aerial view of the London 2012 Olympic Park, with the Olympic stadium top left, with the Accor Mittal 'Orbit' Tower, centre. Photo / AP.

Opinion

It's fast becoming the most overused word in London. Politicians and committee men are in danger of setting world records as they race each other to emphasise that these Games will be judged not only on the 17 days of competition, but on the "legacy" they leave behind.

The goals can be summarised thus:

• Leave behind world-class facilities and improved infrastructure

• Transform a large chunk of a downtrodden part of town

• Inspire more Britons, especially children, to play sport.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The first is a given, the second and third are more interesting and potentially far-reaching.

Stratford, home to Olympic Park, is virtually unrecognisable from the suburb it was when I lived in adjacent Mile End a little more than 10 years ago. Then it was known as dull by day and dangerous by night.

"The area was a toilet. There's no other way I can describe it," says East End born-and-raised cabbie Paul Renn, scanning the 220ha of the park.

"You can't underestimate what a big deal it is. This was a dump. It was derelict. What they have done is phenomenal, it really is. There's a lot of happy people around here now."

It is true that the park has transformed what was a contaminated wasteland. There are still patches of scruffiness - the sort of thing that would have provoked sniffy comment from the British press had it been Athens or Beijing - but it has scrubbed up well.

Discover more

Lifestyle

Grooming for gold: The Olympic champs of 2020 (+photos)

27 Jul 06:00 PM
Olympics

Olympics: The potential medal party poopers

27 Jul 05:30 PM
Olympics

Olympics: Tour just the ticket for road race

27 Jul 05:30 PM

There are concerns, even if they are becoming more muted as excitement about the Games themselves intensifies.

Although Renn believes that if moaning was on the Olympic programme Great Britain would be guaranteed three more medals, there is a sense that the new vitality in the district will evaporate just as quickly when the temporary jobs created by the Olympics come to an end.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

There will still be the shiny new Westfield City, a mall impressive even to those with an allergy to credit cards, but will there be people spending money in it?

In a newspaper column, IOC president Jacques Rogge, of Belgium, wrote: "[Locog chairman] Lord Coe and his team simply had to put legacy at the heart of their bid."

It is what tipped the scales when the IOC assembly opted for London over Paris by a narrow 54-50 margin.

For every pound spent on infrastructure, 75p has been dedicated to legacy purposes, according to Rogge.

"Legacy has not always been at the forefront of Olympic planning, however," he said. "Many years ago it was sometimes more of an afterthought to Games organisers; a concept often left to chance. Some host cities clearly fared better than others in this regard."

Those who gained a big tick are Barcelona, perhaps the "legacy" standard-bearer and Sydney. Those who failed are more numerous, from Montreal to Moscow, Atlanta to Athens.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The East End will be a prettier, more accessible place. Which leaves only the children.

Will the Olympics inspire an increasingly sedentary generation to get off their backsides and play sport?

The Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson, said there was a clear link between success at elite level sport and wider participation, citing the 500,000 increase in cyclists after Britain's eight-gold haul at Beijing.

But the Conservative Government has been criticised for extolling the virtues of the Olympic Games as a means to engaging youth in sport while at the same time slashing school budgets, with sport being one of the big victims of the cost-cutting.

Renn the cabbie described the way state-sponsored school sport has withered as a disgrace and the numbers tend to back him up.

Figures this week revealed that 44 per cent of the British Olympic team attended public schools - what we would call private - a staggeringly high percentage when you consider that only 7 per cent of children are privileged enough to attend those institutions.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

These Games might be mainly hosted among the most blue-collar boroughs of London, but the make-up of the British squad would suggest the class system is alive and well on the sporting fields. (It's not just Olympic sports either; only three players in the current England test cricket team were state-educated.)

Lord Coe and his cohorts might find it a bit harder to legacy their way out of that one.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Olympics

Olympics

'It was different': Dame Lisa Carrington on end of remarkable 16-year streak

07 Jun 10:00 PM
Premium
Black Ferns

Woodman-Wickliffe on babies, books, broadcasting and King’s Birthday honour

02 Jun 03:00 AM
Olympics

NZ Olympic medallist set for surgery after crash

10 May 04:33 AM

Jono and Ben brew up a tea-fuelled adventure in Sri Lanka

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Olympics

'It was different': Dame Lisa Carrington on end of remarkable 16-year streak

'It was different': Dame Lisa Carrington on end of remarkable 16-year streak

07 Jun 10:00 PM

The kayaking great says her break is an 'opportunity to try something different'

Premium
Woodman-Wickliffe on babies, books, broadcasting and King’s Birthday honour

Woodman-Wickliffe on babies, books, broadcasting and King’s Birthday honour

02 Jun 03:00 AM
NZ Olympic medallist set for surgery after crash

NZ Olympic medallist set for surgery after crash

10 May 04:33 AM
Broken ribs, punctured lung: NZ Olympic medallist in hospital after crash

Broken ribs, punctured lung: NZ Olympic medallist in hospital after crash

04 May 09:10 PM
Help for those helping hardest-hit
sponsored

Help for those helping hardest-hit

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP