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(ATR) After the euphoria of the year to go Olympic celebrations, London mayor Boris Johnson tells Around the Rings he intends to work flat out to win the mayoral election next May to lead the British capital through the Games.
"We are working very hard," Johnson told ATR at the 2012 aquatics center that was opened on the Olympic Park Wednesday to mark the one-year countdown to the Games.
"I want to be mayor at the Olympics. I'm going to put everything into it, but we will have to see," he said.
Johnson announced last September that he would be seeking re-election for a second term after ousting Ken Livingstone in the 2008 contest.
Livingstone, who ran City Hall for eight years and helped London win hosting rights to the Olympics, was selected as Labour's candidate for the London mayoral election last autumn.
Campaigning is set to get underway in earnest in the coming weeks. Eight other candidates are also running for mayor. The election is scheduled for May 3, less than 12 weeks before the Olympics.
Johnson already has a Back Boris campaign website on which he places delivery of Olympic legacy plans high on the list of priorities for a second term in office.
"I believe we will not only lay on the greatest ever Olympic games, it is my challenge, as mayor, to harness the Olympics and all other investments to benefit the whole of London - from zone 1 to zone 6," he says on the website.
"I have a very clear vision of how to maximize the benefits of the Olympics, so that we create a fantastic new district in the Olympic park that is linked in to a new green enterprise zone in what was once the wasteland of the docklands."
On his campaign website, Livingstone released a video yesterday to explain his ambitions for the city beyond the 16-day sporting extravaganza.
He said the Olympics would be "an amazing spectacle, the city which is brilliant at the best of times will surpass itself".
Livingstone underlined that the work undertaken in preparations for the Olympics must be continued to provide new homes and job opportunities for Londoners.
"It's not the end of a process, it's the beginning of a generation of work to give people in the east end of London better opportunities," he added.
Tough Year Ahead for Johnson
Johnson spoke to reporters at the aquatics center about the challenges ahead in the city's preparations for the Games.
Earlier Wednesday, he had met with Denis Oswald, IOC coordination commission chair for London, and Olympic Games executive director Gilbert Felli, for talks about Games preparations.
Asked if the IOC had sought assurances on security, policing and transport - the biggest concerns around the Games - Johnson said: "We have just met and I think they are very pleased and very confident with what they have seen. There's no doubt at all London is going to be ready."
He added: "Olympic security is vital and people have asked me about whether there are any repercussions from what happened in Norway, or any lessons that need to be learned.
"We are looking at that as carefully as we can but we don't think at the moment that there is any particular reason to change our plans.
"We are going to make London a very secure and successful Games."
Johnson also emphasized the huge benefits of staging the Games in east London. He saidconstruction of the Olympic Park had regenerated the area and jobs were being provided for 2,000 people in the Westfield shopping center adjacent to the hub of the Games, while thousands more jobs would be created in building new homes in the area.
Johnson described it as "a new zone of opportunity for London".
"It is a truly transformational thing that we are seeing," he said.
Johnson hit back at suggestions of transport concerns around the London Games, including extra congestion triggered by the use of Olympic lanes for athletes, officials and VIPs.
"This is 16 days in the middle of summer with perhaps a couple of days on either side when the Games lanes will be operational. Those are only one per cent of the whole of London's roads," he said.
"It is necessary to do this in order to make sure that we get people to these events on time. People have trained for four, six years for the Olympic Games. It is absolutely vital that they get to the athletic events for which they have trained."
He added: "I have no doubt that we are going to succeed and that public transport will do a fantastic job, moving tens in not hundreds of thousands of people."
In comments about the aquatics center, the sixth and final venue to be constructed on the Olympic Park, Johnson said it was "mindblowing".
"It is a stunning triumph of British engineering, architecture and design. We have done it a year early. The water is ready to be swum in and looks good enough to drink," he quipped.
"What an amazing advertisement for the Olympic Delivery Authority, for British architecture... on time and under budget."
Reported by Mark Bisson
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