Coe's Olympic Dream ; Two Years From the Start of the London Olympics, the Man at the He Elm Insists: We're Right to Be Staging the Games, Even in a Recession

Summary

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FROM 23 storeys above east London, the whole thing seems cut and dried: the Olympic Stadium is below, the Aquatics Centre is over there and the Village is taking shape across the way. A few finishing touches, the odd lick of paint and we can wait for the world to turn up. Small wonder that Sebastian Coe sits with his back to the office window, unwilling to trust the evidence of his eyes.

As chair of the London 2012 Organising Committee, Coe knows that preparations for the Games of 2012 have been almost flawless. And yet, as a daunting milestone approaches on Tuesday, the cautionary words of John Wayne may be lurking in his head. 'It's quiet. Too quiet,' big John would say. For he knew that the Indians might be waiting around the bend.

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Coe's Olympic Dream ; Two Years From the Start of the London Olympics, the Man at the He Elm Insists: We're Right to Be Staging the Games, Even in a Recession

If Tuesday's milestone has sharpened Coe's vague feeling of trepidation, then he will not admit it. 'There's an immutable deadline and we have to hit it,' he says. 'We know that somewhere around 8 o'clock on the 27th in two years' time, we have an opening ceremony. I guess we've hit pretty much every deadline that we've been set. If we keep doing that right up to the closing ceremony, then that's fine.

'I don't feel any great sense of urgency other than that I wake up most morn...

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