Foster on Olympics bid

Hosting the Olympic Games would ensure a generation of Northerners do not grow up feeling like ‘second class citizens’, the founder of the Great North Run believes.

Sir Brendan Foster is among the sporting legends throwing their weight behind the bid to bring the Olympics and Paralympics to the North of England during the 2040s, writes Local Democracy Reporter, Daniel Holland.

Metro mayors from across the entire region came together in Sheffield on Tuesday to start drawing up what they hope will become a credible and realistic vision to stage the global sporting showpiece.

While plans remain at a very early stage, the idea would be to share the Games across venues spread around the North.

Sir Brendan told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the idea that towns and cities in the North East, North West, and Yorkshire could stage the Olympics was “completely alien to what we were brought up to believe” about the region’s capability.

The athletics commentator and former distance runner, who won an Olympic bronze medal at Montreal 1976, said that the legacy of a Games here could be life-changing – both in the huge infrastructure upgrades it would deliver and for the mindset of the entire North.

Speaking from Sheffield’s Olympic Legacy Park, he said: “The prize for staging the Olympic Games is not the gold medal, it is the infrastructure. When I go to the Diamond League in London in a few weeks’ time and walk across Olympic Park, I remember in 2005 it was derelict. When they bid for the Olympic Games they said they would revitalise that whole area and if you look at the transport network and the facilities there, if you look at the investment and regeneration, you see that the big prize for the Olympic Games is in the infrastructure and development and transport links. 

“That is the physical space, but from the societal viewpoint it is for people in the North of England to be aware that they are not second class citizens and that they are first class. It would be a huge step forward.”

Mayors from across the North of England came together last year under the Great North partnership, in an effort to unlock a potential £118 billion worth of investment and thousands of new jobs.

Sir Brendan has lent his internationally-known brand to the movement and sees the Olympics as a potentially transformational development.

He added: “[Hosting the Olympics] is not about who wins the 400 metres, it is about what it does for the people. And what it does for the people in terms of that infrastructure, I know the people of the North of England would pay back in terms of their response to an Olympic Games – just like their response to the Great North Run for 45 years has been legendary, their response to an Olympics Games would be legendary. It would be the friendliest, best, most exciting Games.

“But the big prize would be the long overdue investment in the North of England to give us the capacity to grow.”

Fellow North East native Steve Cram, who is also among a star-studded list of more than 40 sporting greats who have this week backed the bid for an Olympics and Paralympics in the North, said that public belief and support for the project would be critical.

He recalled “a lot of negativity” in the years building up to London 2012 but believes that leaders would now be “pushing against a bit more of an open door” because of the public’s positive memories of that summer.

The ‘Jarrow Arrow’ said: “We will need a lot of political support, which we have, and also a lot of public support. The public have to really want this because the IOC takes notice of what is being said locally – Newcastle, Sunderland, Sheffield, all of us.

“If the UK were to host the Olympic Games again, and there is no reason we shouldn’t because we do it very well, then why not bring it to a region which is passionate about sport, will support it, and where the infrastructure and investment it would require would be phenomenal for generations to come?”