You're reading: Game’s chiefs hit back at critics as excitement mounts

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Organisers of the Olympics hit back on Sunday at cynics after weeks of negative headlines, saying criticisms over planning mistakes and cost were being outweighed by public excitement as the opening ceremony nears.

Britain’s famously critical media,
which has highlighted security and transport problems ahead of the
July 27 to Aug. 12 Games, also appeared to take a more positive
stance as thousands turned out to cheer the Olympic torch relay
through London.

“I think possibly what we’re going
through as a nation, as a city is that necessary, pre-curtainup
moment of psychological self-depression before the excitement begins
on Friday when the curtain goes up,” London Mayor Boris Johnson
told the BBC.

“The mood is perceptibly changing,
people are starting to get really excited here in London about the
arrival of the torch …. The last remaining clouds of dampness and
Olympo-scepticism are going to be banished,” he later told Sky
News.

Thousands turned out in London on
Saturday as the Olympic torch relay began its final leg of its
journey around Britain, and on Sunday the flame was carried to the
top of the London Eye ferris wheel opposite Big Ben and the Houses of
Parliament.

In the coming days, the torch will be
carried around London’s religious, political and royal landmarks,
culminating in the lighting of the Olympic cauldron in east London.

The run-up to the Games has been dogged
by weeks of rain and difficulties in recruiting enough security
staff, prompting the government to draft thousands of extra army
personnel to make up for the shortfall.

Transport delays also loom over the
games, with border officials planning to strike on July 26 and train
drivers in central England set to walk out on Aug. 6-8. London’s
underground rail network, a 19th-century creation, may struggle to
cope with tens of thousands of Olympic tourists.

“FIASCO, CHAOS AND CRISIS”

Writing in Britain’s Daily Mail
newspaper, Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Olympic organising
committee, said the words “fiasco, chaos and crisis” had
become the new currency of journalists, who describe his committee as
“dysfunctional”.

“Sometimes you fight back because
the reportage bears no resemblance to reality …. you have the
insatiable desire to start every explanation to your inquisitor with:
‘Lighten up. We are staging the greatest celebration of sport’,”
he said.

Britain’s press however appeared to be
joining the Games bandwagon on Sunday, dedicating pages of coverage
to the torch relay in London and giving away special Olympic guides
and supplements.

“Let’s get the Olympic party
started” the Sunday Times said in its editorial, while an
article in the Sunday Telegraph urged readers to “celebrate a
world united”.

Still, jitters hang over the games,
with 2012 the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Munich attack by
Palestinian gunmen that killed 11 Israeli Olympic team members a
reminder of the security challenges ahead.

“This is an event that is
naturally attractive, even if there aren’t concrete alerts. Readiness
and vigilance are required …. things like the Munich massacre have
happened in the past,” Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told
reporters.

The International Olympic Committee on
Saturday ruled out marking the anniversary of the Munich killings at
the London opening ceremony, despite decades of campaigning by
families of the victims for an official commemoration.

The president of Libya’s Olympic
Committee Nabil Elalem might make it to the Games after being freed
on Sunday, a week after he was taken from his car by gunmen in
Tripoli.

Asked if Elalem would go to London, a
colleague said: “Maybe in two or three days’ time. The Olympic
staff have worked hard for his release.”