Two years before the London Olympics, the focus is global . . . and local

Reporting from London — Even at this early stage, Olympic Stadium actually looks like a stadium. Two years before the 2012 London Games begin, the roof is almost in place and some seats are installed.

The construction site is in an area of East London called Stratford, where the organizers of the London Olympics have a vision that what once was an abandoned industrial zone will bring new energy to a depressed region, where development might continue and life might thrive well after the Games.

Sebastian Coe, London organizing committee president, proclaims, “This is the next big global event. The World Cup is over. The world comes here next.”

Coe speaks confidently, optimistically. That is his job.

On a recent hot July afternoon, Hilton Mussein Mohammed, 22, stood staring at the outline of the new stadium.

Mohammed, who described himself as an unemployed electrician, said he is not looking forward to the Olympics as a gathering of athletes achieving dreams or as a chance to be part of a global sporting event.

His interest, he said, is less global.

“I hope to get some work,” he said. “And I hope some work comes to stay permanently. I hope after the athletes go home that we can have some businesses here in this neighborhood. Then I think this will be a success.”

The opening ceremony is scheduled for July 27, 2012, and the sweep of the moment will not be like Beijing, Coe said. It is a new era. The worldwide financial comedown has seen to that. London does not expect to match the almost overwhelming pomp and pageantry, the explosion of light, sound and color that marked Beijing’s opening ceremony.

Even so, in an interview last week Coe said London organizers have raised more than $925 million in domestic sponsorship money. His target is $1 billion, he said.

Around London, excitement mixes with caution.

“When the world comes to London,” said Harley Harris, a 60-year-old retired shop owner, “I think we will be ready. It is what we do and we have always been ready to welcome the world.”

Sitting across from Harris on a District line subway train one afternoon, Khalil Fazeez, 35, of East London, said he hoped expectations weren’t built up too much.

“We are being told this will all result in a wonderful, new developed area that will benefit many,” Fazeez said. “Sometimes promises aren’t kept though, are they?”

If you take a trip out to the main Olympic site, the most eye-catching building is the aquatics center.

It is supposed to look like a big, blue whale and, sure enough, that’s what you see. Many spectators will arrive via public transportation and when they get off a train at the Stratford regional station and come into the open they will notice the whale, almost certainly, even when everything is finished.

Organizers also expect to use all of London’s majestic sites as telegenic backdrops. The marathon course will take runners past Buckingham Palace and cyclists will race past Trafalgar Square. Wimbledon and its famed Centre Court will stage tennis matches.

But these Olympics aren’t only about sending pretty pictures around the world, Coe said, or about providing the best atmosphere for athletes.

His vision is broader.

“The greatest driver of social cohesion in most of our communities is sport,” Coe said. “The way the Games have galvanized communities the length and breadth of the country is extraordinary.”

During a conference call last week, Coe hammered the point that any country interested in holding an Olympics needs to have a strategy. His is the remaking of East London into a dynamic and vibrant business and residential community — a grand desire.

In a 90-page report produced last year by mayors of four districts surrounding the main Olympic site, the most notable sentence is this: “The true legacy of 2012 would be that within 20 years the communities hosting the Games would be as well off as the more affluent parts of West London with the Olympics acting as a catalyst for other improvements.”

Fazeez said many of his friends who live in the East London area aren’t paying much attention to the Olympics or the athletic facilities that are transforming the sightline.

“They’d rather get a job now,” he said, “and still have it in 2013 when the swimmers are gone and we’re still here.”

diane.pucin@latimes.com

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