Member

Indeed, it was so important to keep the two apart —and the autonomy of sport whole—that, during the 2012 Olympic Games in London, we introduced legislation in this House at the request of the International Olympic Committee as a precondition of us hosting the Games. We had to recognise the autonomy of the International Olympic Committee, and we had to do things that I do not think politicians wanted to do—for example, closing the fast lanes on many of our roads to allow members of the IOC and some of the sportsmen and sportswomen to travel down them. There was not too much support in this House at the time for that—nor indeed among politicians on either side of the House of Commons—but we did it because we recognised that, if we were to host the Games, the autonomy of sport was vested in the International Olympic Committee. That was a condition precedent not only of hosting the Games but of our athletes supporting and playing in the Games.