ABSTRACT
London 2012 was the English capital city’s third time playing host to the Summer Olympics. Peter Beck has observed that although there are massive differences in nature, scale and funding between the events of 1908, 1948 and 2012, the three London Games “are linked together as key episodes in both British and Olympic history” (Beck, 2012: 38). In 1908, certainly, the London event changed Olympic history – not least by convincing Pierre de Coubertin that neutral judges and umpires were needed in the future, given the lack of objectivity and fairness exhibited by the British judges who aided London’s medal haul – and also by the first-ever march past of athletes behind their national flags (de Coubertin, 2000: 418 and 424). The 1948 Games were a chance to re-establish international competition and express a vision of intercultural understanding and cooperation following the ravages of the Second World War. For Beck, London 2012 “should be interpreted as helping further to rebuild and strengthen the Olympic movement after the bribery crisis, and particularly to support its efforts to promote new directions like cultural Olympiads legacy” (p. 38). The Games could also symbolize worldwide the United Kingdom’s capacity to stage a spectacular global event just four years after the start of the global economic recession, an economic context wholly unanticipated by the Games bidders of 2005 who pipped Paris at the post for the privilege of staging the 2012 event.
