London 2012: iceberg of Olympic logistics

        And now it all starts in earnest: the first athletes and tourists started to arrive into Heathrow this Monday for London 2012 to be officially opened on July 27. Despite all the security concerns and reports that there are not enough private guards for the Olympic venues or, on the contrary, reports saying that the hosts are overdoing security by bringing in too many army units, the hosts say they are ready to make the Olympics run as smooth as possible.

        As one Whitehall official put it: “The aim is for Britain to come out of these Games looking better to the outside world than when we went into them.”

        It is sometimes clearly more fun watching the preparations for the Olympics than the Olympics themselves. No matter how much one loves the Games, all the sports and the athletes (with all due respect and no offense meant) are only the glorious tip of a huge iceberg of logistics, which is serviced from top to bottom by hundreds of thousands of people. Their work more often than not – and more often than is necessary – either goes unnoticed or is criticized.

        Given that this huge “Olympic mountain” is to be navigated through reasonably narrow straits of time and a myriad of opposing opinions and demands, it is amazing how the Games can be managed at all. Bringing in the sportsmen and the teams with all their equipment is the least of the organizers’ problems. There is also security, customs, transportation, catering, brand protection, sponsors, copyright issues, financing, accommodation, and dealing with any diplomatic problems or even war or regional conflict. And last but not least: taking care of all sorts of capricious VIPs ready to blow their tops at any miserable hiccup.

        Dealing with the abovementioned kind of possible and impossible, foreseen and unforeseen emergencies, problems large and small, is the job of the 2012 taskforce, which established its headquarters in London’s Canary Wharf. A group of British diplomats, police, and Olympic officials make up the Protocol Co-ordination Centre (PCC). They have spent almost a year quietly thinking up gradually worsening scenarios for world troubles and now say they can knock out any problem – from accommodating unexpected or “last arrivals” amongst many heads of state, to bombs threats and coups in other countries.

        For almost every last Olympics, the VIPs “come or not” has been a nightmare for diplomatic protocol, air traffic control, special airport zones, and police protection units. It is simply not known for sure who is going to come.

        For this Olympics, which about 120 heads of state are expected, only 70 foreign leaders confirmed their attendance as of last week, mostly for the opening ceremony on July 27. As the experience of past Olympic Games demonstrates, many will leave it to the last few days to decide, so preparations have to be set in motion as if they were coming. “The big shots”, of course, do not have to enter lotteries months in advance to get tickets. They pretty much can decide to arrive the day before and expect to fly in to be met by crisp, white-gloved service. There are contingency plans even for the few leaders who have said no on their RSVP.

        One of the “last arrivals” according to some British newspapers might be Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has informed the UK government that Vladimir Putin will not be coming, but there were reports last week that he might change his mind. That will most certainly happen if Russian athletes start taking one gold medal after another – the glamour of sporting triumph is hard to resist.

        So, air traffic control slots have been booked, as well as airport parking space for their planes. One or more of the 150 British diplomats trained as visit officers at a special Locog (the organizing committee) facility in Hackney will be assigned to VIPs to smooth their way through Britain. Police protection officers and motorcycle outriders will have to be on standby, and a draft itinerary planned, including a Buckingham Palace reception and probably a visit to the Olympic Village.

        But “just in case” some people still think they are “more equal than others”, all foreign capitals have been sent brochures about the airports available in south-east England for presidential and prime ministerial jets, along with a polite reminder that air traffic control slots and airport parking are on a first-come, first-served basis. They have been told not to even think about coming to Heathrow, which will be on the brink of bursting from commercial traffic.

        The PCC planning unit has even worked out special contingency plans for an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites – not so remote a possibility, particularly as high-level negotiations with Tehran have been suspended. Everyone has to keep in mind that it was during the Beijing Olympics of 2008, on the day of the opening ceremony on August 8, that Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili authorized the bombing of South Ossetia, causing the Caucasus war.

        If something like this happens, an emergency team of diplomats in a specially outfitted Olympic situation room in a basement on King Charles Street in Westminster, called the Foreign (Office) Co-ordination Centre (FCC) would put together a situation report for the Cabinet Office, and get in immediate touch with the PCC. The diplomats, police protection officers, transport specialists, and Olympic organizers would then identify and anticipate which visiting dignitaries would need extra protection, which would need to meet and those who would need to leave.

        There are also scenarios raging from vast volcanic ash cloud, like the Icelandic eruptions of the past two years, to a foreign official or a member of an athletic team being arrested or kidnapped.

        This Olympics the British has also introduced something unseen before – “The Brand Police”.

        Starting from July 16, hundreds of uniformed Olympic officers began touring the country enforcing sponsors' multimillion-pound marketing deals. The operation is so highly organized that it contrasts with the scramble to find enough staff to secure Olympic sites.

        Almost 300 enforcement officers wearing purple caps and tops are all experts in trading and advertising working for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). They will be checking firms across the country to ensure no one is staging “ambush marketing” or illegally associating themselves with the Games at the expense of official sponsors such as Adidas, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and BP. It is the biggest brand protection operation staged in the UK. Under legislation specially introduced for the London Games, they have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to ￡20,000.

        Some ￡1.4 billion of the Games’ ￡11.4 billion budget comes from private sector sponsors. The International Olympic Committee’s 11 global partners – including Coca-Cola, Visa, and Proctor & Gamble – are contributing ￡700 million. Meanwhile, another ￡700 million comes from London 2012 partners, which includes Adidas, BT, EDF, and Lloyds TSB.

        The scale of the brand enforcement squad is already causing criticism that the Olympics have become too corporate. Paul Jordan, an expert in brand protection at Bristow’s solicitors who advises firms on the rules, said they were almost certainly tougher than at previous Olympics. “No other brands would have people walking the streets being their eyes and ears, protecting their interests.”