"She'll either deliver or she won't," says London's mayor, Ken Livingstone "Us interfering won't make it any easier. OK, so by throwing our weight behind her we may have made a disastrous mistake, but interfering now won't improve that. I actually think we've picked the person who can win us the Games." With media murmurings gathering momentum and venerable IOC eyebrows still arched in surprise, the man chiefly responsible for placing American Barbara Cassani at the head of London's bid for the 2012 Olympic Games remains resolute that she is right for the job, and must be left alone to do it her way. But Livingstone is nothing if not persuasive.Since Cassani, the 43-year-old former chief executive of Go Airlines, took over at the start of the month, there has been criticism that she seems a little girl lost in the combative world of sports politics, that she lacks the clout to impress the International Olympic Committee, and that she has got her priorities wrong. She did not show up in Paris at the World Athletics Championships until after influential IOC members had left town, and there is now concern that she seems to want to plunder the Friends Reunited website and surround herself with familiar faces from her former business world rather than tap into international sports expertise.Livingstone is unfazed.
"There were three other people who could have done it, but the advantage Barbara had was that she was a decade or more younger She's hungrier than the others. I thought, 'This is the person who is going to fight the hardest for it'. For the others, it might have been the crowning part of their careers, but for Barbara it is going to be the biggest job of her life. If she gets this right she'll go on to one of the great world corporations." But will she be seen simply as Ken's Go-between? Livingstone insists that she is there to do London's bidding, not his.
"You don't appoint someone at this level and then expect them to be your messenger. It was the same with Bob Kiley [another American who was a Livingstone appointee] at the Underground. We must all let her get on with it - me, the sports world and the Government."At the moment, late-starting London lags some way behind its most serious rivals but on Tuesday, at the bid committee's new Docklands headquarters on the 50th floor of the Canary Wharf tower, Livingstone and Cassani will unveil major plans to set the ball rolling towards the vote in Singapore. Significantly, the presentation will be made to members of London's business community, whose financial support Livingstone enthusiastically courts.There is little doubt that Livingstone no longer takes things quite as Red and, while no sports buff, he will be a major player in London's biggest-ever game.Mayors are the fulcrum of all aspirant Olympic cities. Livingstone's opposite numbers in Paris and Madrid also chair their bids, and Montreal's Jean Drapeau was blamed for the infamous 30-year taxpayers' burden, known as "Drapeau's baby", following the 1976 Games." Livingstone promises much greater prudence, and even hopes that with a little luck he may still be in office to perform the mayoral ritual of handing over the ceremonial flag on the podium of the planned Olympic Stadium should London get the Games.Yet this is a man who, on his own admission, knows absolutely nothing about sport. Now, with timing as sharp as a starting block's mechanism, he apparently has been converted on the road to Damascus - or rather, Stratford. "Ken is without doubt the best reactive politician in the country," says a former sports minister, Tony Banks.
"He picks up other people's ideas, exploits them and runs with them."But Livingstone argues that he recognises sport's value to the community, and especially now to his own electorate. Craig Reedie, the BOA chairman, recalls that when the idea of the bid was first put to Livingstone, he said: "Let me put my cards on the table I'm not a sporty mayor I really couldn't care less about sport The nearest I've been to it was a snooker table at college. But I am absolutely clear that nothing will do for the city what a successful Olympics would. I will be its biggest fan."Reedie adds: "He's been true to his word. He even came to Downing Street with us and shook hands with the Prime Minister, which seemed pretty good news politically.
