LONDON – Anyone who has been to the Olympic Park can tell you: the service is superlative.
Imagine if rail workers, tube staff, and airport security staff had the same attitude as the Olympics Staff? Even at the security barriers, where the checks were just as thorough as any airport I’ve been to, there was the distinct lack of power-tripping “authoritarianism” those sorts of roles seem to attract.
I wonder what they did differently? Well, some are volunteers which explains a lot. But clearly they were all told something really simple: Be nice.
I think you’re right, KK – it’s about people who actually *want* to be there and be part of creating an Olympics experience that everyone will talk about for a long-time (that and extraordinarily meticulous planning, if the interview with Seb Coe on Sportsweek last Saturday is anything to go by).
It’s funny, isn’t it, to compare the reality with all the doom-mongering that went on before the Games? The opening ceremony was going to be crap (erm… no, actually, it was bloody brilliant – especially the lighting of the cauldron, which I thought was spectacular). London Transport was going to grind to a halt (erm… no, again – if anything my commute in and out of London has been smoother since the Games!).
In fact, with the exception of grumblings about empty seats
(none of which was anything to do with the organisers), it seems to me it’s been a bloody marvellous Olympics all round. And to top it all off, Team GB surpassed its medals target with 5 days to go, still sitting pretty in 3rd on the medals table.