Legacy of London 2012 is one that has sold Britain’s fitness short | Olympic Games 2012

This summer time marks the tenth anniversary of the London 2012 Olympic Games. It is customary right here to counsel that decade has merely flown by, that the years have handed in a blink. In actuality this already appears like an occasion from a unique timeline altogether.

It’s not the precise Games, which can stay a beautiful factor, tenderly guarded. It’s extra the staging. Looking again there’s something jarring concerning the uniformly joyful and empowered response to the opening ceremony, with its ragbag of nostalgia and self-mythologising. Kenneth Branagh pretending to be Brunel. Musical Youth taking part in croquet. Roger Moore inside a telephone field browsing dial-up web porn. Fiona Bruce and Dizzee Rascal reciting the delivery forecast on high of a large cheddar cheese.

It felt unusual on the time that these pictures of the previous, a sort of John Betjeman acid dream, had been seen as a assured new reimagining of Britishness; that the longer term was now broad open, that we might all now pace off in the direction of that horizon on a Union Jack Vespa.

And a decade on that present appears like a jumble sale of end-of-empire odds and ends, a nation chucking the final of the Regency eating chairs on to the fireplace for the leisure – examine that VIP visitor checklist – of Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Robert Mugabe.

It seems the speedy future wouldn’t be 50,000 nurses breakdancing to Elgar, however one thing nearer to George Michael’s troublesome new materials. The future could be a Games that ran vastly over finances, whose legacy isn’t first-rate services or an finish to the weight problems and participation disaster.

Zoom out a bit and essentially the most tangible legacy of 2012 is the profession acceleration of Boris Johnson, the sort of politician who would steal Judi Dench’s Olympic skiffle board and outsource it to a Bosnian crime ring if it suited his private development. Welcome, 10 years on, to the cut-price current, a spot the place the wallpaper has lengthy since begun to peel.

The purpose for providing these miserable observations is that the legacy of these Games has been within the information once more this week. UK Athletics has been supplied a tempting sum by West Ham to surrender its proper to stage occasions on the London Stadium, a transfer that does make some sensible sense. Although to not Seb Coe, who has recommended it will be “weird” to relocate athletics occasions to Birmingham and that London should hold its “world-class presence”, which a cynic may interpret as retaining a fig-leaf that this was ever a workable concept.

How to know this mess? One manner is to return to an unresolved criticism. The reality is London already had a dilapidated world-class facility. It stays a scandal of the London Games that £9bn was spent with out regenerating the Crystal Palace National Stadium, an omission that tells us an awesome deal about how such a rich nation is so poor in its bodily tradition.

This is way more than a London problem. It speaks on to the way in which assets and entry have been squandered throughout the nation, and the way, if there was any will, this may very well be modified. Take a visit to Crystal Palace now and the National Stadium remains to be a beautiful place, a whole sporting village sitting there absolutely shaped, frozen in a gorgeous state of decay, all crumbling boulevards and mildewed ramps, a humiliation of area and lightweight and scrolling sight-lines.

There’s the stunningly ethereal indoor centre, a construction you’re feeling it is best to name “Brutalist” as a result of that is what folks at all times say that about precast buildings. But it’s not brutal. It’s delicate, with its positive concrete strains, its steep glass panels, the cover of that limitless ceiling.

Down under is a pit the place folks play volleyball on sand donated by the 2012 Games, the sporting legacy equal of giving the gardener the ultimate slice of two-week-old marriage ceremony cake. The stadium itself is a large open area, with flying slab roof and basic leathery orange rice-pudding-skin operating floor. On a Thursday afternoon some blokes had been in there having a kickabout in entrance of 20,000 ghosts.

The actual level is that this place isn’t a relic, however an concept that must be rebooted. The plaque from its official opening by Prince Philip describes it as “National recreation centre”, and the deep historical past of this place is in these phrases, the notion of sport as a drive for collectivism and shared enjoyment.

Crystal Palace was one in every of 5 nationwide sports activities centres conceived within the Nineteen Fifties – Lilleshall, Bisham Abbey and Plas y Brenin survive – as a present to the well being of the nation. These had been locations the place elite services had been out there to all, designed to foster not simply excellence, however a tradition of exercise and participation.

The Nineteen Fifties was that sort of time, with a postwar enthusiasm for grownup training, social mobility, state provision. Whereas within the a long time since we’ve bought our well being and leisure off by the unit. Try strolling into any nationwide sports activities venue now and asking for a go on the parallel bars. You’ll be tasered by a non-public safety agency referred to as Quanglion.At Crystal Palace non-public entities referred to as issues like Supahealth and PeeplJym are nonetheless making an attempt to make this beast work, like Star Wars scavengers sifting although the sand for half‑buried imperial cruiser components. Its actual worth is as a residing, crumbling case for a large change in coverage on well being and sport.

The National Stadium ought to be renovated and maintained, however for its authentic goal of open public use. And past that each British metropolis and area ought to have one in every of these. A sequence of nationwide recreation centres ought to be the purpose of each piece of funding. It may be executed. Iceland selected to maintain its creaky nationwide stadium and use its revenue from Fifa and Uefa to construct all-weather group pitches throughout the nation.

If this appears like extra Olympic-scale fetishising of the previous, it’s price remembering the previous additionally gives some fairly good concepts. Not a lot Gary Barlow singing Let It Be in a taxi created from spam; however the message buried within the crumbling facade of Crystal Palace, of sport as a shared jewel, from a time when the longer term seemed like a spot we might all go to collectively.