The Government are putting together a bid to hold the Olympics in the north come the 2040s but the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has slammed plans to snub the capital
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has called out the Government’s plans to table an Olympic bid for the north of England, claiming it would be “a missed opportunity” for the country.
Ministers have asked UK Sport to carry out a “strategic assessment” as they eye up a bid to stage the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the north of the country come the 2040s.
London held the games back in 2012. After winning the bid in 2005 the country invested in a whole new infrastructure, including the London Stadium, which is now home to West Ham, and a full Olympic village featuring other sporting arenas. Khan believes another London-based Olympics could utilise all the sporting facilities built for the 2012 games, whilst it could also be the “greenest Olympics ever”
However the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said: “It’s time the Olympics came North and we showed what we can offer to the world.” She also added: “I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that we’re starting the firing gun on a long overdue vote of confidence in the North.”
The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has said they are “throwing full support behind bringing the Games back home which will boost our Northern Growth Corridor.”
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But a spokesperson for the Mayor of London has claimed that overlooking the capital as part of any bid would be a major error and “mean our country fails to unleash the full benefits of a UK-wide games.”
They said: “Sadiq believes that a potential country-wide bid, using all the assets we have in the UK, including the publicly-owned London Stadium would deliver the very best possible Olympics. Using London’s existing world-class infrastructure would help deliver the greenest and most sustainable Games, as well as unlocking huge economic growth both here in London and around the country.
“Not including the capital in an Olympics bid would be a missed opportunity, and mean our country fails to unleash the full benefits of a UK-wide games.”
London’s successful bid to host the 2012 games followed a failed attempt by Birmingham to stage the 1992 games and two unsuccessful bids by Manchester to host the 1996 and 2000 Olympics and Paralympics.
Back in 2017, five years after the Olympics in London, it again played centre stage to the athletics world when it hosted the World Championship, which proved to be the scene of Usain Bolt’s final race.