Spectator Sport

16 May 2009

The Olympic champion

The Olympic Development Authority (ODA) is responsible for the site, and the organising committee (LOCOG) for the Games. Olympics insiders say it’s like one building the theatre, the other putting on the play. There are some very tough cookies running the show too: two deeply impressive engineers head the ODA, chairman John Armitt and Australian chief executive David Higgins, who helped to deliver the Sydney Games, while Seb Coe and former banker Paul Deighton have raised £485 million of the £650 million they need for LOCOG, far ahead of other Olympic cities at a comparable stage.

And at the head of it all, and maybe the only person who understands it, is the former Arts minister, Blairite stalwart, and one of the few all-round good guys of politics, Tessa Jowell (and I know she won’t mind the guy bit). Jowell has been fighting the case for the London Olympics for years, starting back in 2002, arguing first with Blair, who got it, then with Brown, who probably didn’t, and she has been a tireless and ferocious champion ever since.

So, if he’s got any sense, almost the first thing David Cameron should do when he wins the general election next year, or hopefully sooner, will be to pick up the phone and ask — beg even — Tessa Jowell to stay on as the head of the Olympic project. And if she says yes, that’s one less problem in his overflowing in-tray that he’ll have to worry about.

Roger Alton is editor of the Independent.