GE Chief Encourages Investment in 2012 Olympics

GE CEO Jeff Immelt says the Olympics provides a positive forum for businesses in an economoic crisis. (ATR/ M. Thompson)(ATR) General Electric chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt says London 2012 provides an area of potential investment for companies worried by the global financial crisis.

“We are in a time of financial meltdown and possible recession but you have to look at the opportunity that comes out of chaos,” Immelt said Wednesday.

“The world has changed and the world will change - capitalism is being redefined as is the intersection between government and industry. The Olympics give a forum to allow business and industry to interact with that not just for a year or two but for a long time.”

Immelt's words of optimism amid the economic downturn came at a legacy conference part-organized by GE at the British Museum in London.

Only last week LOCOG admitted the hostile global economic climate was making it tougher to raise financial support towards its overall $1.4 billion sponsorship target. Meanwhile, the Olympic Delivery Authority and Olympic village developer Lend Lease are struggling to secure private finance to keep the project on track.

Immelt said it was vital for the 2012 Olympics to create a strong legacy in order to be considered a success.

“We believe that 2012 can be a turning point for London... investments in the Olympics will go to support societal problems such as healthcare and education,” he told conference delegates.

GE is a worldwide partner, global sponsor and infrastructure supplier of the Olympics and played a major role in the success of the Beijing Games, having contributed to more than 400 infrastructure projects in and around the Chinese capital. The company managed projects in all 37 competition venues, claiming a series of technological “firsts” for China.

Immelt believes London should look to China as a successful example of how to use the Games to enhance a country's brand.

“Everybody should look at the Chinese. The way they embedded the Olympics into the core strategy of the country and pulled it off – the Games will live in the minds of people for decades,” he said.

This stance was supported by LOCOG's chief executive Paul Deighton, a panelist at the legacy conference. “It’s not enough just to have a fantastic summer of sport in 2012 - it’s an event like no other in terms of inspiration and scale,” he said.

“It’s important to inspire the youth of the world to choose sport like all these children now in swimming pools who want to be the next Rebecca Adlington [Team GB's double gold medal-winning swimmer in Beijing]."

In charge of helping to create new British Olympic icons in 2012 is Clive Woodward, director of elite performance for the British Olympic Association. The former Rugby World Cup winning coach told the conference that investing in facilities and professional coaches will help lead to an improved and sustainable legacy post-2012.

“To get to the top is all about having the right attitude and the right hunger and if you can do that you can create changes,” he said in his keynote Panelists at GE's legacy event stress that thereis work to be done to ensure London 2012's success. (ATR/M. Thompson)speech.

“Training is a vital part and I have not met a gold medal winner yet who doesn’t have a gold-medal winning coach.”

His comments come at a difficult time for the BOA, whose financial problems were highlighted by its chair Colin Moynihan at last week's NOC congress in London. The BOA's current lack of funds is jeopardizing Woodward's planned Olympic coaching academy. The $25 million plan calls for up to 15 coaches to be given intensive support and finance in an attempt to ensure more gold medals in 2012.

Moynihan is hoping to plug the funding shortfall by the end of the year and is calling on the government to honor its commitments to the British Olympic team in the run-up to the 2012 Games.

GE's Olympic-themed business event, aimed at educating audiences about complex infrastructure issues and solutions for host cities, is part of a new marketing push in advance of Vancouver 2010 and London 2012.

For the 2012 Olympics, GE has launched a moving image campaign on the side of London taxi cabs featuring a technique known as ‘motion lenticular technology;' as the cab moves along the streets, the images appear to be animated.

The campaign, which runs until February 2009, features 300 London cabs displaying the new Olympic Games designs as side panels.

With reporting from Mark Thompson in London.

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