ATHLETICS:As our athletes realise, it's too late to implement any further planning for London, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

Life, as John Lennon famously said, is what happens while you’re busy making plans for the Olympics. At least I think that’s what he said. In any case, only six and a half years to plan for Rio de Janeiro! Or according to my watch, 2,498 days, two hours and 30 minutes before the opening ceremony on Friday, August 5th, 2016. No time to be lost. No expense to be spared. Indeed most of us thought we would be planning for Chicago, before in that greatest upset in Olympic-bidding history, Barack Obama somehow failed to woo the International Olympic Committee the same way he wooed the majority of Americans to vote for a black President.

Personally, I was hoping Rio would steal the vote all along. If only because the Copacabana is to be one of the main competition sites, and at least beach volleyball will be coming home.

However, this excitement was lessened yesterday evening when I opened the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine. There, as if on cue, was a terrifying article on the gangland warfare that has spiralled out of control in the favelas around Rio. It’s now the top-ranked city in the world for “violent intentional deaths”, and one of the few places left on earth where you have whole areas controlled by armed forces that are not of the state. Scary.

Anyway, South America here we come – at last! Truth is we probably would have been better off planning for Chicago. Between all the Irish bars out there and our love of deep dish pizza it would have been the next best thing to having the Olympics at home. The windy conditions could well have worked to our advantage in the swimming and high diving events and there’d be none of the annoying language barriers which killed off so many of our medal chances in Beijing.

Of course we said similar things about this time four years ago when we celebrated London getting the 2012 Olympics as if we had actually won the vote ourselves. This was hailed as the “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to maximise our Olympic potential, along with the potential Olympic spin-offs that would surely come our way. But with just over two a half years to go, or by my watch exactly 1,028 days, two hours and 20 minutes, it’s a bit late for that now – particularly when all the plans that were announced for London have effectively come to nothing.

Plans, what plans? Well in August 2006, a year after London got the 2012 Olympics, then Minister for Sport John O’Donoghue announced details of a Government-sponsored task force which he said would maximise the benefits to Ireland, “particularly in the areas of business, tourism, sport and culture”. He said the first phase of Sports Campus Ireland at Abbotstown would be completed by then, allowing Ireland to host teams in various disciplines suitable to the facilities available.

He noted too several countries, including Brazil, Germany and the US had expressed an interest in coming to Ireland to help their athletes acclimatise for London. Wow! This task force included the likes of former GAA president Seán Kelly, Budget Travel chief Gillian Bowler, and music composer Mícheál Ó Súilleabhán.

Unless I’ve missed something they haven’t exactly been up to the task. Has a single country given even a loose commitment to basing themselves in Ireland ahead of London 2012? About a year ago there was some fuss made about the Jamaicans coming here, Usain Bolt and all, maybe basing themselves in Limerick ahead of 2012. Well, in case you missed it, in July, Jamaica signed a deal with Birmingham City Council to use their sporting facilities as their base ahead of London.

As for our Sports Campus Ireland, do we really want to go there again? It’s over a year ago now since I visited the 495-acre site in west Dublin to hear the Government announce plans to start work – definitely! Even as the economic crisis loomed, there was still ample justification to press ahead, if only to deliver the most overdue sporting facility in the country; a proper indoor running track. Estimated completion date? Early 2012 – to maximise our Olympic potential for London.

On the day, they wheeled out Kilkenny hurler Henry Shefflin, Dublin footballer Bryan Cullen, and Irish rugby internationals Luke Fitzgerald and Brian O’Driscoll to highlight the fact Sports Campus Ireland would benefit every sport in the country. And it would have.

Phase One was originally estimated to cost €119 million, back in 2004, and even as the country’s finances went from bad to worse this was good value for money. On July 16th, in a sort of final act of defiance, the project was granted planning permission by Fingal County Council – the same day An Bord Snip Nua, in the effort to cut a total of €5.3 billion from the annual cost of running the State, declared Sports Campus Ireland should be scrapped.

Snip! Given the state of the construction industry, they could probably build Sports Campus Ireland for well under €119 million, but the dream has been overtaken again by reality. Instead of this one worthy sporting legacy of the Celtic Tiger we’re left with blocks of cold and empty apartments. Although maybe now we could put together a half- decent bid for the 2020 Olympics, in the spirit of Gay Mitchell; it made absolutely no sense when Mitchell first proposed it, back in 1992, but at least now we could promise available accommodation on a truly Olympic scale.

And what about that other great pie in the sky, the Irish Institute of Sport? Actually, we really don’t want go there again. It means the only vaguely real Olympic facility we have to show for our decade or so of wealth and gain is the National Aquatic Centre. However, due to the ongoing cutbacks and proposed water rates there is a rumour that lanes seven and eight will soon be closed off.

Yes, it’s too late to implement any further planning for London. At least our athletes realise that. Olive Loughnane, David Gillick, Derval O’Rourke and Paul Hession remain our big hopes of success in 2012, and thankfully they’re all operating outside of the system, if there is a system, rather than depending on it. We can also save ourselves money this time; instead of having to come up with a London Olympic Review, we can just reprint the Beijing Review. Nothing will have changed.

But for our emerging teenage talents such as Ciara Mageean, Shane Quinn and Christine McMahon the six and a half years to plan for Rio should be beginning now. No time to be lost. No expense to be spared, etc, etc.