Let’’s forget faster, higher, further. The toughest and most important of all Olympic contests is the (36)______to host the summer Games. The (37) ______to win never comes to a city more than once in a generation, and the winner (38)______an enormous benefit, as Barcelona, Sydney and Athens can all testify.
This summer, the International Olympic Committee will (39) ______ which city is to host the 2012 Games — and London is among the (40)______ in a heavyweight contest, along with Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow.
If London does win, the (41)______of the Lea Valley in London’’s East End into Olympic Park, a fitting showcase for the world’’s greatest (42) ______, will represent the greatest single (43)______to British engineers of the early 21st century. (44)____________.
One man who has been through the experience already is Dennis Le-nard, chief executive of Constructing Excellence, an organization set up by the Department of Trade and Industry to promote best practice in the building industry. An engineer from Australia, he worked in Sydney in the lead – up to the Games there in 2000. (45)____________ although they are innovative beyond anything yet imagined. He is also thinking of the ground-breaking construction methods being pioneered in Britain — such as reducing the amount of work done on site to less than 50% of the total (46)____________.