The London Games drew on the expertise and experience of a team of Australian security experts at Intelligence Risks.
“The public perception, not unreasonably, about security for an Olympic Games is what they see,” says Intelligent Risks chief executive Neil Fergus. “The guys, the bulky guys standing at a gate doing the screening or the wanding, CCTV cameras here and there; but the reality is the security starts way back before that.
“We use specialist engineers to work with the architects and the design teams to ensure we design out security problems.”
Intelligent Risks, was born out of the expertise pulled together for the Sydney Olympics. It now provides security advice for a host of mega-events, with personnel working on six Olympics, five Commonwealth Games, three FIFA World Cups and other international sporting events and political summits.
Organising security and deploying 40,000 staff for the multiple venues involved in the London Games has been a big task.
“The British have not left any stone unturned in their commitment to deliver a safe and secure Games,” Fergus said.
The UK subsidiary of Australian company Cleanevent has the contract for cleaning and waste recycling at the main Olympic venues.
Working on the Olympics is “an incredible, once in a lifetime experience, especially when the Olympics are held in your home country,” according to Cleanevent’s project manager Darren Raczkowski.
During the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Darren was precinct manager of cleaning and waste management for the common domain. Now, after 10 years in the UK, he is reliving that experience in his other “home country”.
Raczkowski says a highlight is “seeing all the planning and preparation become a reality”.
“Whether it is a crew of 300 turning over the Olympic Stadium in 30 minutes between sessions or two cleaners preparing the Officials’ Lounge in Hyde Park, the actual delivery is paramount to the preparation.”
Melbourne-based manufacturer Advanced Polymer Technology Australasia built the bright blue and pink hockey pitches for the London Olympics.
Managing director Martin Schlegel says Olympics contracts are hotly contested by organisations around the world.
“It has been a continuation of success of delivering our products to the world. We have supplied Sydney, Beijing and now London.
“When you fly over London city approaching Heathrow, the hockey venue is the only open structure in terms of the major stadiums.
“People can see our pitch in the striking colours and I think it can become an Olympic icon amongst all of the other structures within Olympic Park.”
Schlegel says the new polymer pitch has set a benchmark for hockey by combining vibrant new colour schemes, environmentally responsible technology and the exacting playability characteristics that elite players demand.
The legacy of the pitch will last long after the Olympics are finished.
“London has come up with the idea to actually recycle parts of the stadiums and make them available to schools,” says Schlegel.
“To take a part of the Olympic turf and put it into a playground at a school is, I think, going to be a great legacy.”
Keeping the London Olympics running smoothly have been a team of 8,000 volunteers, who are all part of a program that ACT-based ExSport Management helped devise.
ExSport advised on the planning of the volunteer program from 2006 to 2010, stepping out once the event date approached.
ExSport owner Brendan Lynch got his start by devising a volunteer program for the Australian University Games. This led to securing the volunteer management contract at the Sydney Olympics.
Lynch told SmartCompany this experience helped ExSport win the contract to advise on London 2012.
“Once you are in this environment where major events are occurring you often find you are recommended to organisations and people recommend you,” he says.
He says being involved in an Austrade mission in 2006 helped the company gain more contacts.
“We managed the volunteer recruitment program for Sydney Olympics and we try and learn lessons each time and try and pass on information to the organising committee.”
ExSport regularly visited London during the planning period for the Olympic Games.
“I visited three times a year for those four years I advised the London Organising Committee on the planning strategy for the volunteer program,” he says.
“It involves working with the HR department and talking them through the process about what the numbers will look like and possible sources of recruitment.”
Australian firm PTW Architects was part of the design team that created the distinctive 7,000-seat stadium popularly known as “The Copper Box”, which has hosted the Olympic handball tournament.
It is being used for handball preliminaries and quarter-finals and modern pentathlon fencing during the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games.
John Bilmon, managing director of PTW Architects told SmartCompany Make Architects invited PTW to join its design team based on PTW’s experience in previous Olympics.
“We were impressed with Make’s work and had no trouble agreeing to join their team,” he says.
“The Handball Stadium was won through a design competition process.
“Like all such competitions, the design team worked together through a number of options, work-shopping each in an environment alive with ‘creative tension’ and culminating in a design idea which was sufficiently unique and appropriate to the extent that the design jury was said to have had no doubt that ours was the winning scheme.”
Bimon says PTW really gained from its involvement in the London Olympics and members of the PTW team were based in the London office of Make for the competition process.
“Increasingly, globalisation and modern communications technology mean that Australia is no longer perceived as an isolated country but rather part of a global architectural community.
“PTW has gained from this process, in that we are exposed to projects of aspirations and scales at times vastly different from those available in Australia.”
The building was completed on time and under budget early last year. When the Olympics are over, it will become a multi-sport arena for community use, athlete training and small-to-medium scale events.
It will be the only permanent indoor arena retained in the Olympic Park, as the basketball arena will be relocated.
Many of the winning rowers at the Games have used a highly advanced Australian-made oar.
“Almost every team has got a portion of their squad using our oars,” says owner and founder of Croker Oars, Howard Croker.
Croker began crafting timber oars in his parents’ shed in Sydney in 1962 after completing his apprenticeship as a boat builder.
Croker Oars has constantly changed and improved its oars to stay ahead of his competitors as technology has advanced, particularly with the arrival of light-weight carbon fibre in the 1980s.
“We have a much lower percentage of oars than our American opposition but we win the greater percentage of medals,” Croker says.
“The athlete who can feel the difference uses our oars, and we are all about the feel.”
Cara Waters is a former SmartCompany editor. Previously, Cara was a senior reporter for the Financial Times’ website and worked for The Sunday Times in London.
