Gilbert Felli, Executive Director of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), told Bloomberg that the bid cities for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games should continue to plan thousands of apartments for athletes even with the collapse of house prices. He said, “the Olympic Village is not a white elephant. It’s probably one of the easiest things to deal with maybe two, three or four years after the Games”.
Bloomberg reports Vancouver 2010 had its credit rating cut by Standard & Poor’s last week after guaranteeing funds for the athletes’ village when private lending dried up amid the credit crunch. London 2012 is using contingency funds to finance its village. Felli said, “at the time of those bids we didn’t understand we had a financial crisis ahead”.
The Associated Press reports Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley isn’t worried the management upheaval at the U.S. Olympic Committee will hurt Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. The bid got a boost Thursday when the new Governor Patrick Quinn pledged to raise the state’s financial guarantee to $250 million. Recently the bid got a new chief executive officer when Jim Scherr resigned and was replaced by Stephanie Streeter, a board member who, according to the Associated Press, helped engineer his ouster.
The artist’s impression of the London 2012 Media Centre at the north end of the Olympic Park near Hackney Wick was unveiled Friday by the Games authority and has been sent to town planners for approval. The centre will cater to 20,000 broadcasters, photographers and journalists during the Games. It has 900,000 square feet of business space with the potential for thousands of new jobs as a legacy for East London once the Games are over. London 2012 head Sebastian Coe said, “billions of people around the world will rely on the centre to relay the stories of human endeavour on the field of play and capture the atmosphere of the Games. It will also be a ‘high performance’ workspace as a legacy for East London afterwards”.
