We’re always being told that bringing the Olympics to London will turn us into a nation of athletes, getting us all off the couch and onto the running track. But there’s no evidence for this claim; no other Olympic host city has seen a sustained rise in sporting participation after the games.
To make things worse, grassroots sports are having to pick up the bill for overspend at the Olympics. Today’s Sunday Times reports that,
This is the opposite of the ‘sporting legacy’ that we were promised when London won the Olympics. Is it too late to pass the whole thing off to Paris?“Local sports bodies will have to contribute £70m towards the Olympics, the equivalent of one multi-purpose floodlit games area or one 100m grass pitch in each parliamentary constituency.”
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