London 2012 blog

I have just spent two days in beautiful Riga, on the west coast of Latvia.

I was attending and presenting at the European National Olympic Committees (NOC) Seminar for Secretary Generals and ‘Chef de Missions’ (essentially the Team leaders). It’s always a good meeting for me, with many familiar faces and old friends from past Olympic and Olympic Winter Games.

Everyone accepts much of the best work is done in the bar and increasingly the ‘jeans’ outnumber the ‘suits’ – my kind of meeting!

This forum is key for all OCOGs (Organising Committees) to communicate and disseminate key logistical and operational info to the team leaders of all the European Olympic teams.

BOCOG – the Beijing 2008 organisers - came with a delegation of six, VANOC (Vancouver) – two and London – just me!

Colleagues from BOCOG gave detailed information on the key dates and information required from NOCs over the next and final 12 months in the run up to Beijing.

VANOC were pleased to be able to update on the progress being made with their venues and I talked the NOCs through our objectives and milestones for the next year, emphasizing our focus on meeting the needs of the athletes.

Understandably the focus was on Beijing and I sat there realising the huge job ahead of us all, and in particular in NOC Relations…I look forward to rising to the challenge.