Old Farnhamians' Association

2006 Farnham Lecture

Winning the 2012 Olympic Games for London

by

Simon Clegg CBE

 

Tuesday, 17 October, 2006

The scale of the Olympic Games and the organization required to stage that event almost defy human imagination. There are 10’000 athletes converging on the chosen city to participate in 26 sports, but that is to understate the scale. The supporting staff and services come to a massive multiple of those numbers – around 260’000 people is the total. Despite this, cities around the world compete intensely to obtain the prize of staging the games.

Simon Clegg, who lives in Farnham, has been the Chief Executive of the British Olympic Committee since 1997. Prior to that he had managed the British team in all the Olympic Games since 1988. His Farnham Lecture, delivered at Farnham College, gave fascinating insight into the strategy and tactics employed in the competition that surrounded the campaign that led to the awarding to London of the 2012 games last year.

His varied experiences in the fight to secure the games was interspersed with atmospheric film clips made as part of the promotion of both the bid and the games themselves. The audience was quite captivated by the presentation and there were many questions at the end of the lecture.

This was yet another highly successful Farnham Lecture presented by the 400 Trust.

 

    

John McLaughlin, Maurice Sturt, Sally Francis, Cyril Trust, Simon Clegg CBE and John Crotty

 

400 Trust
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