London's Olympic team has spent a year working with botanists at Sheffield University to ensure that the flowers planted for the new Olympic Park will bloom exactly on time. A similar remarkable attention to detail, plus professional rigour and drive, has ensured that all six of the permanent venues have been built on schedule. In the process, the industrial wasteland that blighted part of the East End of London has been transformed. The site, to be named the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has, in addition to venues, 35 new bridges, housing, train stations and walkways, setting fresh standards in sustainability and accessible design. Lessons have been learned from previous Olympic Games in Greece (white elephant stadiums), Atlanta (rotten transport) and Barcelona (a catalyst as London hopes to be).
The London Olympics has its critics. However, only the most curmudgeonly would deny that bouquets are due in particular to those who do not normally share the limelight, namely, the engineers, construction workers, architects and others who, in five years, have physically performed a modern miracle .
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