{"id":551,"date":"2012-07-05T16:18:26","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T21:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/?p=551"},"modified":"2015-02-23T16:19:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T21:19:00","slug":"dispatch-from-london-olympics-countdown","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/articles\/dispatch-from-london-olympics-countdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Dispatch from London: Olympics Countdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;London is ready.&#8221; That&#8217;s the declaration from an East End native and Olympics guide as well as a member of the Olympics Development Authority. Week One of BU&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/academics\/journalism\/student-work\/semester-at-the-summer-olympics-2012\/\">Covering the London Olympics<\/a> program kicked off with students visiting the major venues, including a &#8220;stingray&#8221; aquatics center, the Olympics Village and stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Security personnel are everywhere, and Master Builder David Fison later explained to the students, &#8220;Beijing was not a terrorist target, the U.K. and the U.S. unfortunately are.&#8221;, raising the price of security at the Games. Fison is a British construction CEO and a member of the Olympics Development Authority. Seven years in the planning and building, Fison is proud that 75% of the Olympic venues will be re-used, one of the key factors in London winning the hosting bid.<\/p>\n<p>The Games, starting July 27th, will depend on public transportation to the formerly run-down East End; only the Queen and members of the media are expected to use the rare parking lots. So far, Fison said, the construction budget is coming in a billion pounds (about $1.5 billion USD) under budget, with the 2008 financial crisis actually helping by making labor and materials cheaper.<\/p>\n<p>See more of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bujournalism.com\/olympics2012\/\">BU students&#8217; coverage<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;London is ready.&#8221; That&#8217;s the declaration from an East End native and Olympics guide as well as a member of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9874,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[37,281,84,336,337,338],"bu-publication":[],"discipline-type":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/551"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/551\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"discipline-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/discipline-type?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}