Duckers & Diving: An Olympic-sized row

REFRESHED from his summer break our committed columnist unearths a tale which highlights one of the more disappointing aspects of the London Olympic Games.

So you thought the London Olympics have been an unqualified success?

Well…step forward unlikely rebel, Birmingham’s John Nolan.

President of the Institution of Structural Engineers and chairman of consulting engineers Nolan Associates, Nolan mounted a protest in the capital against the hard-line attitude of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) in not allowing those who created the facilities to make capital from their involvement.

In a move given little publicity outside the trade press, the ISE joined forces with fellow representative body, RIBA, to recognise the talented structural engineers and architects who made the London 2012 Games a reality.

During the protest the group unfurled a banner at RIBA headquarters in London listing the names of all the design and engineering firms, they were aware of, involved in the Olympics.

Nolan insisted: “World class sporting achievement can only happen in world class venues. British architects and structural engineers have risen to the challenge and generated world leading sports stadia. The Olympic Stadia are a marvellous advertisement for Construction Design GB.

“LOCOG are preventing the companies involved from advertising their achievements and hence choking off the huge export potential this would generate.”

Olympic marketing protocol rules have restricted many of those involved from publicising their work on the Games, much to the annoyance of businesses up and down the land. The No Marketing Rights Protocol reserves all Olympics-related self-promotion to official sponsors.

So bravo John Nolan for highlighting this ridiculous and totally unreasonable state of affairs.

Pity though that he is now languishing in the Tower of London – no, I jest.

And for the record, take a bow Olympic Stadium structural designer Buro Happold and architect Populous while on the Velodrome the honours respectively went to Expedition Engineering Ltd and Hopkins Architects.