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Jeffrey Archer |
Speakers Forum Topic:
Inside the Olympics INTRODUCTION by Jane Kerr, Accenture Canada
Thank you for the
opportunity to be here today and to speak on some of the aspects of the Olympic Games that
can, but do not always, reach the headlines.
It was little more
than five weeks ago that the Olympic Games closed in Athens, bringing down the curtain on
an extraordinarily successful event that, up to a matter of weeks and even days before the
Opening Ceremony, was very much in doubt. The doubt extended well beyond whether
the Games would be successful and went to whether Greece could get its act together
sufficiently even to be able to stage the Games.
There were many
reasons for the uncertainty. Most of them can be laid at the feet of the host
country and its delays in construction of the necessary facilities and
infrastructure. Not only were the delays all too predictable, but also the
predictions proved to be right. The Games would be either a last-minute success or a
last-minute disaster, sunk under the weight of missed deadline after missed
deadline.
We in Montreal
have to be careful not to cast too many stones in the direction of Athens, because, in
many respects, the challenges faced by Athens are strikingly close to the experience we
had, leading up to the 1976 Games.
Our construction
program was delayed for almost the same three years as that of Athens. In each case,
the basic problem was political. For Athens, it was a series of dithering failures
to make political decisions on location, design, construction and financing, for fear of
adverse election results. In Montreal, we faced a Liberal Quebec-based minority
federal government that had to deal with the backlash from the rest of the country about
the costs of the recently-celebrated Expo ’67. This government dealt with the
issue in the bold and decisive fashion we have come to know and understand in
Canada. It did nothing, while the project shrank from a six-year challenge to a
three-year desperate race for completion.
Montreal and
Athens both had a grandiose construction program, centred around a high-tech main stadium
that brought with it extra costs and architectural challenges. Montreal’s
elliptical structure required different moulds for practically every section of the
stadium and the removable roof, eminently unsuited to Canadian winters, was complex almost
beyond description. The Olympic gods were kind to us, requiring, for the Games, an
open stadium and natural turf. I doubt we would have had a snowball’s chance of
getting the full mast constructed and the roof in place on time for the Games. In
Athens, the massive arches, weighing thousands of metric tonnes, were installed only a few
short weeks before the Games. And these were not just decorative elements, but
contained much of the technical aspects of stadium operations and the Games
ceremonies. Their absence, or the failure to be able to lift them into place, would
have been catastrophic.
We also shared a
security challenge of a different order than ever before in Olympic history.
Montreal staged the first summer Games after the tragedy in Munich in 1972, which changed
the nature of security operations at a time when many, including the outgoing IOC
president, Avery Brundage, thought that there might be no future Games. Athens
inherited the post-9/11 environment, which raised security concerns, all over the world,
to a new level. Both Canada and Greece responded brilliantly to the new
requirements.
The Greeks have
built a large number of sports facilities, as did we, and will now have to address
themselves to the post-Games use and maintenance of them. This has become an
ongoing issue for Games organizers and their communities. Montreal has been only
moderately successful in its management of the after-use of its Olympic facilities.
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A year or so ago I
chaired an IOC Commission, imaginatively named the Games Study Commission, the mandate of
which was to study ways and means of reducing both the costs of staging the Games and the
complexity of Games organization. Simply applying common sense, together with some
knowledge of how Games are organized, we were able to identify ways of saving anywhere
from $400 million to $2 billion. By far the greatest portion of the savings came out
of sensible management of the construction of facilities and the scheduling of not only
the construction, but also the use of facilities during the Games. We had a couple
of basic premises: first, bigger is not necessarily better and it is certainly more
expensive and, second, before you begin to build, figure out what you are going to do with
whatever you build after the Games.
The other
fundamental aspect of construction is proper planning and scheduling. Late
construction is expensive construction, as we know all too well in Montreal, and as our
Greek friends now know even better. They got everything done, at the last minute and
just in time, as did we, but they only got there by throwing money at all the problems, as
did we. There is no reliable audit of the Athens costs available yet, but my guess
is that they were a couple of billion dollars more than they would have been, had a
sensible construction schedule been established and followed.
One of the stories
that made the rounds in Athens related to the main stadium. It, like ours, is a
splendid architectural concept, but very high tech. Four months before the Games,
the stadium was nowhere close to completion. Two months before the Games, the huge
arches were still not in place, and, until they were in place, completion of the interior
could not occur. That may have been just as well, because three months before the
Games, they had not yet ordered the 85,000 plastic seats. It was in relation to the
seats that the story circulated. Someone approached a workman who was bolting one of
the seats into place on the post sticking out from the concrete rows of the stadium.
He said, “Listen, are you guys going to be ready for August 13th?” The
workman looked up and said, “What is August 13th?” “For God’s
sake, man, that is the date of the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games, to be held in
this stadium!” “Really?” said the workman, “What time on August
13th?” “8:00 in the evening,” said the other. “Oh, yes,
we’ll be ready by 8:00.” None of the cure is rocket science, but mainly establishing the discipline of getting it right from the start and keeping this in mind throughout the exercise. One of the keys, which those of you in business, the professions, academia and other activities will certainly recognize, is to make sure that the project does not develop into separate silos, each self-contained, often jealously guarded, and impermeable. Every decision you make has a knock-on effect. Every decision.
Even before the
post-9/11 upgrading of security, we made a rough calculation that all this would cost
about $10 million per day. So, just by a seemingly innocuous decision,
well-intentioned as it may have been, the costs of the Games were increased by $140
million. Put another way, by reducing the period during which the Olympic Village
was open from 14 to seven days (which, by the way, is plenty of time for acclimatization),
the organizing committee could have saved $70 million. I wish I could have claimed a
1% commission on all the savings we could have achieved!
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Canada had a
relatively disappointing Games in Athens. I can assure you that no one was more
disappointed than some of the athletes who failed to achieve what they reasonably thought
would be within their grasp. Some of this was bad luck, such as the result of
injuries, or the better-than-expected performance of other athletes. Some it was not
getting it right on the day of competition and that is part of both the excitement and the
pressure of Olympic competition. If, on the day, you get it perfectly right, you may
become Olympic champion, but you have to be ready, physically and mentally, on that
day. There are almost no second chances in Olympic competition.
Some of the
responsibility rests with the athletes, of course, but we must also look to the support
staff whose responsibility is to make sure the athletes are fully ready and prepared
– on the day, not a week early or a week late. I am one who believes that our
governments have some responsibility to provide adequate funding for a national effort in
sport. This does not mean hundreds of millions of dollars, but some additional
funding, combined with rigorous sport – not political – decisions as to whether
the programs produce results. The Olympics are the ultimate “feel good”
experience – to be representing your country in the greatest sports event in human
history – but they are also the ultimate sport challenge and the athletes are not
there as tourists.
The Athens Games
had their share of Olympic crises. There were some shamefully incompetent judging
messes, especially in gymnastics, where in one case, the International Gymnastics
Federation acknowledged the error, but then pronounced itself powerless to correct
it. This was not a call on the field, but simply the entering of the proper weight
to be given to a particular routine, which is entirely mechanical. The failure meant
the difference between a gold and a silver medal. The federation sent the judges
home in disgrace, but appeared unable to act to correct the mechanical error. Apart
from this and a couple of other bad calls in gymnastics, however, the judging was pretty
good.
The war on drugs
took a step forward in Athens, as we not only caught more cheaters, but also the knowledge
that they were likely to be caught if they came kept a number of athletes from
coming. There were some who decided that they should spend more time with their
families, or who managed not to qualify in their Olympic trials, or who were caught at
home or who remembered that they had left the iron on and turned back. It now
appears that a cyclist may have escaped the net as a result of a couple of human errors
that led to some blood being frozen before the second test could be performed. We
were, therefore, unable to get his medal back, but, I can assure you, it certainly is no
longer gold in the eyes of the world. The same athlete was tested a few days later,
following the Games and the blood was not frozen, so he will at least be caught on the
second bounce.
My sense is that
there has been a real sea-change in relation to doping in sport, even if it is taking a
long time to spread to the professional sports. People are beginning to understand
that doping is not just potentially dangerous to the health of the athletes, but that it
is disgusting to trample on the essential ethical principles underlying sport. None
of our children should be forced to become chemical stockpiles to be successful in sport,
simply because there are some sociopaths out there who care nothing for the principles and
even less for their fellow competitors.
99% of doping is
not accidental. Most practices require the complicity of coaches, trainers or
doctors. Designer drugs are not accidental. EPO is not accidental. Blood
transfusions are not accidental. Manufacturing devices and inserting them into your
anus or vagina to catheterize and store “clean” urine is not accidental.
People who do this do not belong in sport and part of my job as the chairman of the World
Anti-Doping Agency is to find them and make sure they are removed.
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Canada is now
preparing to be the host of its third Olympic Games in Vancouver-Whistler in 2010. I
think this will be a splendid occasion for the entire country and that we will deliver
Games that will make us, and the Olympic Movement, extremely proud. Speaking of
competition, I hope that our sports leaders and governments will act so that we do not
maintain the dubious Olympic distinction of being the only host country never to have won
a gold medal during our own Games. Our athletes are good enough. We just have
to make sure we give them the support they need to demonstrate just how good they are.
Vancouver’s
winning of the 2010 Games puts on hold for a few years the chances for Toronto to host the
summer Games. I am, however, convinced of two things. One is that, someday,
Toronto will be a wonderful host city for the Games. The second is that one of the
reasons why Vancouver won for 2010 was to remove Toronto from the 2012 race, where, as a
third-time candidate (which had the best bid in the two competitions it entered) it would
have been very strong indeed. Most of our support for the 2010 bid came from Europe,
where four of the five finalists for 2012 are located. It was also a decision
designed to weaken the chances of any U.S. candidate, since it is unlikely that the IOC
would grant successive Games to the same continent. There will be great excitement
leading up to the IOC’s decision on 2012 next July.
What ultimately
distinguishes the Olympic Movement from entertainment or gladiator sport is its ethical
platform. We must, therefore, be especially conscious of never losing sight of the
ethical values. The IOC faltered in that regard in relation to the Salt Lake City
Games in 2002 and we came perilously close to extinction because of that lapse. We
have learned a great deal from that unhappy experience, but I think we have emerged from
it as a stronger and more focused organization. We cannot expect athletes and others
to adhere to standards which we do not ourselves embrace and, more important,
practice. If the Olympic Movement can maintain its values, there is no reason why it
cannot continue indefinitely to provide society with a working model of good
citizenship. If it loses its way, sport will be in danger of becoming irrelevant and
a great opportunity for the youth of the world will have been lost. Now, if there are any questions on what I have said – or, on what I may not have said – I will be happy to try to answer them.
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