Recent Attacks Raise Olympic Stakes Yet Again

Someone left London a lethal reminder.

The timing of the coordinated terrorist attacks that killed dozens and wounded hundreds of others just one day after the city was awarded the 2012 Summer Games, may have been coincidental. More likely, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, they were designed to coincide with the G-8 summit opening in Scotland. Or, as terrorism experts speculated, to further weaken his nation’s alliance with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The sad truth is that it hardly matters. Either way, the stakes for staging a safe and successful Olympics that are still seven years off have been raised immeasurably yet again.

Just being in the running to host the games can move any city to the top of a list of potential targets.

“It wasn’t an attack against the games,” International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said.

But in the next breath, he acknowledged the bigger picture: “Cities like London, Paris, New York all face these kind of risks,” Rogge said, “and remember what happened in Moscow and Madrid. There are no safe havens.”

Almost from inception, though, and even for most of the last century since their revival, the Olympics were designed to be just that: a safe haven.

Games were staged during conflicts in ancient Greece and the athletes were granted safe passage to compete. The modern Olympics were postponed twice during world wars, but judged important enough to resume once the familiar rhythms of life no longer sounded or seemed so dangerous.

And twice since, the world’s resolve has been tested: first when a handful of Palestinian terrorists slaughtered 11 innocent Israeli athletes at the Munich Games in 1972; and again when a twisted ideologue left a pipe bomb in an unattended satchel in a downtown park at the Atlanta Games in 1996.

Each time, the games were up and running within hours. Because freedom means choosing between priorities, debate raged over whether resuming the games was about defiance or diversion. The answer has always been the same -- both.

Americans were reminded of that lesson in the aftermath of 9/11, when the flash and pop of our grandest sporting events disappeared for a few days, but the high school games in small stadiums and pickup contests on scruffy baseball diamonds and basketball courts went on. That’s where London finds itself today, where Madrid and Moscow -- both made the short list of 2012 bid cities -- found themselves in the wake of recent terrorist attacks.

And so it hardly makes sense to even talk about pulling together something as spectacular and as daunting as the Olympics, especially an event that is seven years down the road. Not while emergency workers are sifting through the rubble for survivors at four sites, and not until Londoners become comfortable once more with the most mundane details of daily life.

All sporting events scheduled for London on Thursday were called off, and celebrations to welcome the return of the city’s successful bid delegation canceled. IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies issued a statement expressing the committee’s “full confidence in the London authorities in securing the event,” and left it at that.

And yet, despite all the other more pressing concerns weighing on his leadership, Blair vowed as much before returning to London.

“Whatever they do,” he said, “it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations throughout the world.”

The rest of those nations are nervously watching, a few others wearily shaking their heads. The modern Olympics have always been make-or-break financial propositions for cities. Now, the tab for security in recent years almost certainly guarantees red numbers on the final balance sheet.

Montreal won’t retire its debt from 30 years ago until next year. Sydney is still paying its bills from five years ago. Athens could be paying off last summer’s binge -- security costs alone were $1.4 billion -- for twice that long.

At the moment, debt no longer seems like the most intimidating hurdle in London’s path. Simply carrying on as if everything were normal will test Londoners’ courage and resolve as resolutely as anything that has happened since World War II. They have already cleared the first of those hurdles.

“Look,” tour guide Michael Cahill said, “loads of people are walking down the streets. It’s Great Britain -- not called ‘Great’ for nothing.”