A major ambition in the bid for London’s Olympic Games and Paralympic Games was the plan to engage with people right across the UK – to excite them and get them to play a part in it.
One aspect of this is to talk to their elected representatives, and so we organised a visit by Seb Coe (our Chair) and Paul Deighton (our Chief Executive) to Glasgow and the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh to see as many key politicians and civil servants as we could cram in – as well as to join the emerging bid company for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games for an event with students and staff from central belt universities.
We ended up seeing just about everyone – from private meetings with the First Minister Alex Salmond and the Minister for Sport Stewart Maxwell, through to a grilling by MSPs on the heavy-weight parliamentary Health and Sport Committee, useful talks with the main government officials and of course the Glasgow 2014 team itself.
L-R: Paul and Seb with Alex Salmond:
We talked about involvement of communities, about the link between elite sport and grassroots sport, and about our nations and regions work and how that can maximise the benefits of the Games for Scotland.
There are so many ways that London 2012 and Glasgow 2014 can work together, to leave a lasting joint legacy and to develop how we share expertise and transfer knowledge – and this for me was the main conclusion of all the talks – linking two of the greatest sporting events in the world, both happening on the same shores within two years.
The day finished at our packed Parliamentary reception, where the First Minister gave an inspirational speech about the importance of London 2012 and Glasgow 2014 in encouraging sport across the country. A highly successful trip to engage properly with the new elected representatives in Scotland. The challenge before us will be to continue this work over the coming years, and the joint legacy between Glasgow 2014 and London 2012 provides an unmissable opportunity to do just that.
