Could London host the 2040 Olympics and Paralympics? And if so, where?
Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan has once again asserted his desire to see the Olympics and Paralympics return to London, an idea he first floated in July 2024. This would make London the first city to host the modern Games on four occasions.
Khan's pencilled in the 2040 Olympics, the earliest we might realistically challenge for the honour. His preference would be to reuse the existing facilities from 2012. But could we dream bigger, or think outside the Copper Box?
Below, we've essayed five potential sites for a future London Olympics and Paralympics, some more feasible than others.
1. Stratford: Tried and tested
The obvious option — and the one favoured by Khan — is to re-use the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Most of the kit is still there, including the main stadium, most of the swimming pool, the velodrome and various supporting structures. New challenges would present themselves. For example, the park is now home to various museums and cultural venues, as well as prodigious amounts of housing, all of which eat into the available land. But overcoming these challenges would surely be simpler and cheaper than building afresh on a new site. The relative ease of staging such an Olympics might be its undoing, however. Would the selection committee choose London if all it could offer was a re-run of the 2012 Games?
2. Willesden: Leverage High Speed rail
We might instead look to 'do a 2012' in a different part of London. The area around Willesden Junction and Old Oak Common is one possibility. Its mix of light industry, railways and brownfield has a similar mouthfeel to the pre-Olympic Stratford, and the area is ripe for a big overhaul. It's already happening to some extent. The slowly gestating HS2 and Elizabeth line station at Old Oak Common has stimulated plenty of further development nearby. A north-west London Olympics could see the area blossom into a rival to Stratford.
A big elephant in the room here is Wembley, only a couple of miles away. Could the area sustain a second major sports centre after the Olympics? The case, then could be made for staging the Games across both Willesden and Wembley. We could also weave in White City (itself home to the 1908 Olympics), to make it the WWW Games.
An Olympic bid here could also give new impetus to HS2. As things stand, the troubled rail project is set to connect Birmingham to Old Oak Common (and hopefully Euston), a route that is much scaled-back from the original intent. Wave the Olympic wand, and perhaps we could see the extension to Manchester reinstated, or a connecting link to HS1, which could bring international visitors to the Games.
3. Crystal Palace: Former glories
London's done the Olympics on three occasions, but South London has never got a look-in, other than staging a handful of events such as cycling in Herne Hill (1948) and equestrian in Greenwich (2012). Bring the Games to Crystal Palace!
The park already has a famous sports centre, in some need of regeneration. It would require quite an upgrade (the current stadium holds a maximum of 24,000 spectators), and the Grade II* heritage listing could be a barrier.
But the wider park has significant form when it comes to staging spectaculars. You might even argue that it was the birthplace of the Modern Olympics. Back in 1866, William Penny Brookes chose the venue for the first National Olympic Games, an early precursor to the international Olympics that would start 30 years later.
20 FA Cup Finals took place here, several of which drew crowds of over 100,000. The original Crystal Palace, which gave its name to the area, welcomed millions of visitors over its 80-year residency in the park. Five million visited in 1911 alone, to witness the Festival of Empire. The park was also noted for its speedway track and cycling races.
The existing sports centre has put on countless important events. Coldplay have already gigged here, so would feel at home were they to reprise their 2012 Closing Ceremony performance. We could rebuild part of the Crystal Palace as a welcome centre, and present BASE jumping from the transmitter tower as a demonstration sport. The model dinosaurs would be ready-made mascots. It all fits together.
4. The River Thames: the first entirely aquatic Olympics
The trouble with building anything in London is that (a) land is so expensive; and (b) grumpian locals inevitably raise objections. Like a confused steeplechaser, we can bypass both these hurdles by ending up in the water.
The Thames comprises thousands of nautical acres of unused space. We could build the Olympic Stadium and other arenas on a series of floating platforms. The beauty of this approach is that the venues could later be dismantled, towed away, and leased out to other riverine cities in need of sporting infrastructure, thereby recouping some of the construction cost.
Aquatic events could take place in actual Thames water, carefully filtered, of course (such things have been proposed before). Run the marathon along the Thames Path. Archery on the bridges. And how about high-diving from Millennium Bridge, which has a similar clearance to an Olympic diving board? London was once the world's largest and busiest port, a back-story that could offer an historic resonance to the world's first riverine Olympics.
5. Park it until 2048, then go BIG
Agnostic of the actual venue, perhaps we should delay the bid until the 2048 Olympics. London was founded almost 2000 years ago, when Roman invaders established the military town of Londinium. The exact date is unknown, but somewhere around 47 or 48 seems likely. London will be celebrating this anniversary anyway, so why not fold in the Olympics to make for a very special two-millennial birthday party? A cake with 2,000 candles would double as an excellent Olympic Cauldron. The wrestling could be held in Guildhall Yard, erstwhile site of London's first known sporting venue, the Roman amphitheatre. Sticking with the Roman theme, we could make chariot racing a demonstration sport (with a sprint from Charlton to Heston?).
None of these ideas is likely to see fruition, of course. But consider this our own bid to be on the London 2040/2048 Creative Committee, should Khan's dreams move forward.
