‘The Games were coming to London and I thought...wow’
Helping secure badminton, his sport, a place in the Olympics in 1985 was good but winning the 2012 Games for London was great, according to Sir Craig Reedie.
He said: “I was particularly proud in 1985 when badminton was added to the Olympic programme. That was a big moment for me and the sport. And the sport has gone on to boom in Asia in the way few other sports have.
“Then when Jacques Rogge opened the envelope and said that the Games were going to London, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s good’.”
It’s a typically dry understatement by Reedie – the celebrations were wild. He said: “It was announced in Singapore and there was a wonderful party.
“I lost my jacket, I even lost my wife, Rosemary, and when I got back to the hotel she wasn’t there. I could see by the clock by the bed. It was 5.38am and I had a meeting at 9am with the IOC. I drank a lot of water.”
Reedie’s book coincides with the 10-year anniversary of the launch of London 2012. Now retired, his career highlight was in helping secure the Games after a battle against Paris, the hot favourite. Victory was down in part to the help of then-prime Minister Tony Blair, London’s mayor Ken Livingstone and, inadvertently, former French President Jacques Chirac.
Reedie said: “At a dinner when asked about the British bid he’d said, ‘You can’t trust people who cook as badly as that. After Finland it’s the country with the worst food.’ Which, if anything probably didn’t help to secure the Finnish vote.”
Yet, according to Reedie, the success of the Games wasn’t guaranteed. He only knew things would be fine after walking into the newly minted Olympic Stadium in Stratford, in the city’s East End, for the first day of track and field.
He added: “I walked into the stadium after all those years of preparation. It was 10 o’clock in the morning and the stadium was full. All I could think was…wow.”