London 2012

Keith Mills CEO of the London bid to host the 2012 Olympics brings thedailysail up to date on their progress

Continued from part one of our interview with Keith Mills yesterday

While obtaining Alex Thomson a state of the art Open 60 might be major news in the world of shorthanded offshore racing, this is more of a hobby for Keith Mills compared his latest Herculean task - to get the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to pick London as the host for the Olympic Games in 2012.

Mills says that his new position came about after a mutual friend had arranged for London 2012 Chairman Barbara Cassani to meet up with him to go through his address book to see if he could suggest someone to take on the role of Chief Executive for the London bid.

"I did this at a dinner, which was followed quite quickly by a phone call saying ‘why don’t you do it?’" recounts Mills. "It took me a couple of weeks to work out a) whether I could free up the time, because it is a heavy, heavy time commitment and b) whether I could make the contributions necessary to win the bid for London."

While Kassani, formerly CEO of the budget airline GO, works three days a week on the bid it is Mills' task as the Chief Executive Officer to spearhead London 2012, a role that is likely to take his every waking breath for the next two years.

"Apart from concentrating at the moment on all the technical aspects of the bid which is where all the venues and the transport infrastructure and villages and broadcast centres and security and environment and 10 million other things, very soon we will switch towards the international marketing, taking London out to the big wide world," he explains.

The benefits to the country are enormous should Mills and his team's effort succeed. "There is the incredible benefits of regenerating the Lower Lea valley in east London, which is where the Olympic zone will be which is probably one of the most deprived areas in the UK," he says. Winning the bid will act as the catalyst to redevelop 1,500 acres of land in this area.

It will also have a monumental effect on British sport generally as has been seen in Sydney, Barcelona and other Olympic cities. "It will have just an unbelievable effect particularly on sport for the young," says Mills. "If you imagine 10 or 12 year olds in 2005, knowing that the Olympics is coming to London in 2012 - it creates an incredible spur to push them on. And the facilities both around the country and in London will be improved dramatically."

Last but by no means least are the huge economic benefits hosting the Olympics will bring to the country. "Price Waterhouse just issued a report on the Sydney games and the benefits were well north of 3 billion Australia dollars (£1.24 billon), over and above all the costs," states Mills. "So you take all the regeneration costs and the cost of mounting the Games and the incremental revenue generated by way of new resources, tourism, convention industry and inward investment - it’s a huge benefit to the country."

Mills says that London is fortunate as there is considerable infrastructure in place already in terms of airports and hotel rooms. This capacity will be sorely needed.
More than 20,000 journalists and broadcasters are expected to cover the Olympic Games. In addition to this there are 16,000 athletes plus their teams and sponsors. Then there will be the spectators. In Sydney spectator numbers were around 1.1 million and as London is a more accessible venue it is likely that this figure will be exceeded substantially.

While a majority of the benefit of hosting the Games appears to favour London, Mills points out that there will be considerable bonus for areas outside the capital too. "There are 200 competing nations. What they tend to do, and which is what we will be taking out to the regions early in the new year, is hunt around the UK for training sites. So Newcastle, Manchester, and Cardiff, etc will all end up being training sites for the American team or the Russian team or the Chinese teams, etc. And with that you are talking about hundreds of athletes and all their teams descending on a city for some months. The economic benefit to those regions is enormous."

The initial task for Mills and his team - that will grow to 60-70 over the course of the next year - is to create what is known as the 'technical bid'. "That is all about demonstrating the things IOC members are looking for: that we are running a Games that will be attractive to the athletes, that will be compact (in other words they don’t want athletes travelling all around the country), that will be safe and secure, that will leave behind it a legacy. So when the Olympic Games is over, what they don’t want left behind are white elephants. They want a really well thought through plan that ensures that all the facilities that are provided are going to be put to good use."

The legacy of when the Olympics was last held in London in 1948 are landmarks such as Crystal Palace and the old Wembley Stadium. The new Wembley Stadium when it is complete in around two years time is expected to play part in the bid (although it won't be the main stadium) as the Millenium Dome may also be.

While a majority of sports will be held in the Olympic zone there will 5-10 other sports spread across London while sailing will take place out of the new Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy, which would have been enlarged considerably should the bid prove successful.

Alongside the creation of the technical bid will be the international marketing effort, to persuade the 126 IOC members that London will be able to mount a "magical" Games. "That is all about the city and the people, and the organisation and the creativity and thought processes put into making it a special games. So it is part technical, part magical and marketing," says Mills.

The bidding process in itself is highly competitive. At present nine cities are in the race: aside from London these are Paris, Madrid, Leipzig, Moscow, Istanbul, New York, Rio de Janiero and Havana.

For Mills' team the first job will be to create their first submission. This is due on 15 January 2004. The IOC then review those applications in some details and around the middle of May they are expected to announce the candidature cities, a list expected to be reduced to 4-6 cities.

The remaining cities then proceed to 'full candidature stage' and have to submit their full candidature files. "This is a pile of documents about three foot high which details literally every single aspect of the games supported by all the contracts that need to go with it," says Mills.

Following this the IOC evaluation commission will descend on the cities in early 2005 to check out all the venues to ensure that everything said in the candidature files is correct. Finally Singapore July 2005 will see the candidate cities each make one hour presentations to all the members and immediately after those presentations take place the IOC members vote.

Ultimately bidding to hold the Games is a giant gamble but one with the potential to reap enormous dividends. Mills says that during the time he was considering taking on the role he was worried whether the support for the bid would really be there. He has been pleasantly surprised.

"I’ve been in the job for three weeks, so I haven’t been here a long time, but all of the people we have spoken to, whether it be national or local government, planners, sports bodies, local business have just been fantastically supportive. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I think everyone realises it."

The government have provided London 2012 with £20 million and Mills says they will be raising additional funds through sponsorship.

It is perhaps unstandable given his commitment to London 2012 that Mills, the man who created Air Miles, has sold his boat - an Oyster called, inevitably, Frequent Flyer. "I decided I needed a larger boat, and frankly for the next 20 months, I’m going to be rather busy with the Olympic project. But I am going to be buying a bigger boat - once I win the Olympics for London."

In the meantime if he is looking to let off steam then a short flight on Alex Thomson's Open 60 is certain to be available.