Tessa Jowell slams the government for failing to build London Olympic legacy

Tessa Jowell has slammed the government for failing to build on the London Olympic Games to encourage children to play sport.

Jowell is one of five people in the running to be Labour’ candidate for London Mayor. 10 years after London won their bid to host the Games, the mayoral hopeful,who was Minister for the Olympics, told the Guardian:

“Instead of a generation of children being transformed by sport a generation of children have been robbed of the chance to discover a sport they’re really good at.”

“We’ll go on wringing our hands about obesity, wringing our hands about the other benefits of sport and wondering in another five years time why we haven’t got more champions.”

Although she did say the Olympic Games had a positive impact on east London, where they were held:

“Here is the legacy – East Village, the best place in London to live – 3,000 homes there and more coming. “But the fact is that the coalition government allowed our very tight, deliberately targeted definition of legacy to become diffuse. I always knew that was a risk.”

She also criticised the government’s decision to axe funding for sport in schools, saying:

“The most wicked and negligent part of it was winding up school sport partnerships. We’re back where we started in 2002.”

“If a platform had been created and sports policy had been baked in to public health policy, you wouldn’t be worrying about obesity, you’d be investing in sport. You wouldn’t be worried about heart disease, you’d be investing in sport.

“You have to bake it into the Home Office, into health, into education and not see it as an optional extra in a way that sport on its own always will be. I hope this is a huge stain on their consciences.”