London set to rival Beijing in "own sweet way"

By Martyn Herman

BEIJING (Reuters) - After the firework smoke has cleared and the flame goes out on Beijing's spectacularly successful Olympics on Sunday, all eyes turn to next host city London and the inevitable question "how do they follow that?"

The sheer scale of the Beijing project, from the iconic venues to the armies of smiling volunteers and the clockwork efficiency of the transport network, has left a team of around 100 observers from the London Organising Committee awe-struck.

LOCOG chairman Sebastian Coe, a veteran of many Olympics as both a world class athlete and sport's administrator, described the initial reaction of many of his team of observers as like young children waking up to see snow for the first time.

"They probably found it difficult to comprehend," Coe told reporters inside the main press centre in Beijing which caters for a large chunk of the 20,000 media working at the Games.

"But we don't sit here cowed by anything we've seen."

London Mayor Boris Johnson said he had been "blown away" by Beijing's achievements, but both he and Coe said London would deliver an Olympics to rival the one about to finish.

"We have been dazzled, we have been impressed, we have been blown away by these Beijing Games, but we have not been intimidated and in our own sweet way, without wasting tax payers' money, I am convinced that we can do just as well in 2012," Johnson told reporters.

Transport, security and a slowing world economy represent tough hurdles for London but Coe believes his city will stage a Games that will become the blueprint for the future.