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Live discussion with Sebastian Coe

A live chat with the head of the organising committee for the London 2012 Olympics

Seb Coe will be joining us at 1600 GMT on Friday to talk about his Olympic experience in Vancouver, what London 2012 can learn from these Winter Games and anything else Olympic.

Send your questions in here in advance and we'll get them ready for Seb, who will be visiting the Reuters office at the Main Press Centre in Vancouver.

by ReutersSports 2/25/2010 6:22:41 AM
If athletics are so deserving of the Olympic Stadium (when built), why is Crystal Palace in the state it is?

by Lee Trundle 2/25/2010 6:11:17 PM
Thanks Lee. For those of us on the live blog version, I'll post in the comments we hvae lined up from the main post:

by ReutersSports 2/25/2010 6:12:01 PM
Citiboy asked: "London had better brace itself for negative press coverage all round the world. The British media has been dishing it out to all and sundry – Atlanta, Athens and Vancouver. Revenge is a dish best served cold..."

by ReutersSports 2/25/2010 6:12:37 PM
Jezz asked: "I have been pretty embarrassed by our poor showing here in Vancouver, Amy Williams aside (i’m afraid her sole success will be used to mask an otherwise dismal showing)
We have pumped a fair bit of money into supporting the summer athletes, tho Canada have shown it’s no guarantee of success here in the winter version, but woeful funding of our winter athletes means we will continue to rank =last in the winter games :*("

by ReutersSports 2/25/2010 6:13:06 PM
Paul asked: "Its to be hoped that the tickets are available to the actual people who want to go and see the olympics, and not all bought up by ticket touts wanting to make a fast buck on them.
It is getting to a stage where the only way you can get a tickets to any gig or big sporting event is to buy them off Ebay for quadruple or even five times the actual face value, which is just plain wrong.
How are you going to ensure that this doesn’t happen when the tickets to the 2012 Olympics go on sale?

Because I can imagine it now, I personally would love to see our opening ceremony but i can see tickets being very limited and sold out within minutes, with no doubt tens of thousands of them going straight on Ebay for 10 to 20 times the actual value, I do not want to pay thousands of pounds for a ticket that should be a fraction of the price."

by ReutersSports 2/25/2010 6:14:01 PM
Does Seb see any British athletes with his sort of talent in Middle Distance running? Could Britina win gold again at 800 or 1500 or is that now just a pipe dream?

by kayman 2/25/2010 9:26:48 PM
And should Britain set a target for London? Is it helpful to aim for a certain position in the medals table or a certain number of golds?

by kayman 2/25/2010 9:39:25 PM
Remember, we will be here from 1600 GMT on Friday (that's 0800 in Vancouver and 1100 ET) for a live chat with Seb Coe. We already have a fair few questions in but keep them coming and join us back here as we put them to Seb.

by ReutersSports 2/25/2010 10:58:02 PM
Kevin .... A tad long, I was on a roll. Edit as you feel fit and and post as you wish. Thanks for the opportunity! Is Olympic Sponsorship Worth it’s Cost Seb?
Most likely, there will be 12 top sponsors who will have signed up for the 2012 games, in London. In this economic climate of belt-tightening, many now believe Olympic sponsorship deals might start dropping in price. The privilege of displaying the rings comes at a steep price. The biggest Olympic sponsors, known as TOP (for "The Olympic Partner" program) sponsors, pay as much as $20 million a year each for exclusive use of the Olympic rings in advertising and logos. They also get exclusive status as the official restaurant , credit card, soft drink, watch’s, and computers of the Olympics. Lesser sponsorships involve specific athletes, sports federations and national Olympic committees. They all saturate the Olympics with ads, products and services. Lastly, with the Internet threatening broadcasters' dominance, some analysts are even beginning to ask if the economic model that sustains the games could be under threat. The numbers from the last two Olympics will indeed be your wisest guide.

by Jana edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 1:12:10 AM
Lord Coe, Would you please explain how you propose the Olympic Stadium will pay for itself after the Olymics have finished. The current plans to reduce the stadium from 80,000 seater to 25,000 seater in order to hold a handful of annual Athletic meetings are a complete waste of tax payers money. Why can't the stadium be left for use as a football stadium to bring in income for tax payers and an Athletics stadium be built elswhere (there are several other options) to avoid a huge "White Elephant"!

by Craig 2/26/2010 3:39:42 PM
Morning everyone ... Lord Coe will be with us in 20 minutes for our live chat from Vancouver. Please join us for the discussion, and send us in your questions

by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 3:41:33 PM
from Jon: I am a native of Vancouver but live in London now. The winter games are great and I hope London’s are just as good. Its been a great party these last two weeks with some great sports moments.

A lot of the tickets being scalped are comming from the major sponsors. The sponsors were given too many tickets which aren’t being used. So you either need to know someone who works for a sponsor to get them before they wind up with the scalpers. How are you going to ensure that the tickets for sponsors are used or are released to the public at face value?

The other piece of advice I have is for Seb Coe. He should use the British press as consultants as appearently they can control the weather and organise better games from their offices on the other side of the globe than the Olympic Committees.

by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 3:50:21 PM
What is the biggest thing London has learnt from these Games and which of your plans have changed most since Vancouver started?

by Londonknight1 2/26/2010 3:50:50 PM
We'll be starting our live chat with Seb Coe in about five minutes. Keep the questions rolling in...

by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 3:55:42 PM
With this week's announcment of a first positive test for HGH do you think the authorities are winning the fight against doping or - since this positive came some 20 years after athletes were suspected of using HGH - are they destined always to be playing a losing game of catch-up?

by Mitch 2/26/2010 3:58:58 PM
Has the press coverage from some parts of the British media in Vancouver heightened any impression that international media will be in some way 'after you' for London 2012?

by Londonknight1 2/26/2010 3:59:03 PM
Good Morning, Seb. We have a number of questions in from reads of reuters.co.uk and I guess the simplest is How are you enjoying your Vancouver Games experience?

by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 3:59:45 PM
Thixs is my second visit and I am having a great time and also a great learning experience. I am also going to be returning for the paralympics in a couple of weeks time, because of course we deliver those Games in London too. A few weeks after that our teams will properly anaylyse what it is we think we have learnt from both editions.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:00:49 PM
OK, many of our questions have centred around the negative coverage of Vancouver in the UK. Do you think that coverage has been fair?

by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:02:17 PM
No, I don't think it has been fair. I think there has been a lot of good positive stuff as well and my assesment is that they have got the key things right in these Games. Firstly, the stadiums are full and clearly full of people who look like they want to be there, which also tells em they have got the ticketing strategy right.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:03:40 PM
Secondly, the streets have really adopted these Games too, and thirdly, the live sites which are a large part of the Olympic Games don't just sit limp like in the City. And of course the sport has been great.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:04:07 PM
Home town wins always help. The volunteer service has been outstanding. So if you get those things right you tend to have a pretty good Games.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:05:30 PM
We had a question from Jon about tickets. How can you make sure the tickets get into the hands of real fans?

by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:06:04 PM
First of all you have to understand the real nature of ticketing. As an organising committee we have spent a lot of time not just looking at pricing but also looking at bringing partners to the table that will help us promote our ticketing startegy and also transport to and from the Games and finally making sure where possible that ticket prices are accessible..

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:06:50 PM
The primary objective being to have full stadia and the fans that really want to be there.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:08:13 PM
The price of tickets is only one piece of the jigsaw though. Domestically you have to ensure that you have things in place that allow families from outside of London in a position to spend time in the host city.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:08:40 PM
OK, we have a follow up question, albeit one that is slightly off topic ...

by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:09:28 PM
Would you be willing to make a cameo appearance in the forthcoming movie about you and Steve Ovett?

by gcral 2/26/2010 4:09:30 PM
No. I'll allow the professionals to make the most of this story.

by Seb Coe 2/26/2010 4:10:14 PM
Back to the Games and a question about the economy...

by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:10:45 PM
Seb - lets be honest, in the current economic climate we can't really afford these games, can we?

by Marc edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:10:53 PM
The current economic climate has hit everybody hard but think about the project for a few moments. This is not just simply the infrastructure for an Olympic Games, it is in large part the regeneration of East London.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:11:34 PM
At this very moment there are nearly 10,000 people employed on the Olympic Park, 10 per cent of them were long-term unemployed before this project and about a quarter of them are from the five surrounding boroughs. Some of the most economically challenged communities in the country and thousands of companies, the length of the UK, have been benefited from 6billion pounds worth of precurement.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:12:26 PM
On the organising committee side, which is the organisation I chair, our funding is almost entirely raised from the private sector so the cost of staging the Games is met by our ability to raise revenue, which we have done very successfully.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:13:54 PM
So maybe when we were bidding in 2005, we didn't fully appreciate, given the economic downturn, that between 5 and 7% of economic activity in London over the next few years will be Games related.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:14:58 PM
We've also had a lot of questions about the Own the Podium programme in Canada...

by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:15:47 PM
Do you think Canada's Own the Podium strategy has an unwelcome effect on visiting teams and will London do something similar?

by Paul 2/26/2010 4:15:52 PM
Should Britain have an Own the Podium programme of its own?

by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:16:57 PM
Whether you have an own the podium type scheme or not there is an inevitablility that athletes at home Games are going to be under more pressure than when they are 6 or 7 time zones away and it is not just about who tops the medals table, the real challenge for ongoing sporting legacy is to convert every one of those medals into thousands more kids taking up that sport.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:17:07 PM
For me, I have always believed the real driver for participation in sport is the well stocked shop window and the role models that are created by those great domestic moments.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:18:21 PM
Kelly Holmes, with her Athens acheivements has probably done more in recent years to attract young women into sport than any participation programme in the last fews years.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:19:25 PM
Being an athlete at an Olympic Games is also about learning to absorb in your training programmes those kind of pressures. It is part of the landscape and there is no way of escaping that.

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:20:04 PM
you say the challenge is to convert medals into 1000s taking up the sport, but wasn't that the pre-Games goal, which has so far failed?

by stevepog 2/26/2010 4:20:55 PM
No. The pre Games goal hasn't failed. We are halfway through that process and already as an organising committee with the use of our brand our programmes created by our domestic partners is already making a big impact. For example, Lloyds have chosen to activiate their sponsorship in sports participation, new money that has supported programmes like Local Heroes

by Seb Coe edited by ReutersSports 2/26/2010 4:21:31 PM