To want to punch Seb Coe?

[dolallylass]

He's amazing and he's done a wonderful job but he really looks like my XH and I find myself getting all stabby when he's on the box. Grrr!

It's not just Sebastian Coe who was on the British Olympic body. We also had Colin Moynihan and Chris Holmes who are also Olympians.

There doesn't seem to be much of a queue to punch this self-important, self-obsessed, prat on his smug nose

YABU to say he did a 'wonderful job'. Like so many of his ilk, this man doesn't know what a day's work is.

£25billion lining numerous back pockets and filling umpteen boots and he thought it was appropriate to require volunteers to work for free to get the show on the road and keep it there?

The Games have been a 'huge success', Alibaba? For who? The athletes? The BBC? For Vangelis's royalties account?

Oh goody, I got my first "wow".

I never said the Games weren't successful, or enjoyable. I was referring to Coe's appearance on TV at one point, where he DID come across as extremely patronising and did not properly acknowledge the problems people were having with ticket purchases.

YABU. I didn't have much time for Seb before, but I do now. He's delivered well, and avoided being party political. If you remember, he was appointed to head up the games when labour were in power, and I think he can cross political boundaries.

His speeches at the opening and closing ceremony were a bit headmasterly, but he was trying his best.

Unimaginative it might be helpful to get your facts right about the history of London's Olympic bid before you spout off drivel. Lord Coe was brought on board in 2004. The process to bid for the games began in 1997. Hardle a one-man 'vanity project' and even if it were, Seb Coe wasn't the man!

I've always been an Ovett woman but I think that Seb has done a good job and is an acceptable 'head' of the Olympics. Can you imagine Boris or a nameless fatcat doing it? Yuk. I hope we aren't going to get a spate of negativism over the Olympics because I don't think they could have been bettered overall. The ticketing allocations/cost were a fiasco but the site never crashed which is an amazing achievement and very forward-thinking of the IT bods that designed it!

Ha, ha, Robbie Williams is like a young version of my late father. Can I lamp him, pretty pleeeeeeease?

Coe has done a great job for us. "Doesn't know what a day's work is"? Really?

Oh look! The whingers are back. Thought you might have given us more positive folk a break by staying away a bit longer so we could have enjoyed a least a day or two of happiness after the event.

He is a smug Tory, enough people dislike that

What Izzyizzin said.

He has been the front man that's all.

The Olympics have been a great success as an event. Well done LOCOG.

However, smug Seb got the games on a false premise. He and others said that they would increase participation - the "lasting legacy". But they won't because there's no budget for legacy. No money for the coaching, teaching and sports development staff that will be need to convert interest into participation.

If kids have been inspired to play handball by seeing it on TV, what do they do when there's no club nearby and no one paid to start one up? What will local ahtletics clubs do when they don't have enough coaches to cope with the increased demand generated by the games.

Sport England have a rolling survey called Active People which measures participation in sport and physical activity. It will show any increase arising from the Games. As it's been flat since the surveys started in 2005 it's unlikely.

The Games are like a big shooting star - bright but short lived. £11 billion for a party seems a bit much

Slightly off topic, but I only realised yesterday that he's mixed race (Anglo-Indian). Doesn't make a difference, but I was so surprised that I thought I would pass my "gosh, I didn't know that" mild surprise on.

Oneofmyturns - Loll mine tho he's older looking! Are all XHs smug gits or just the ones that look like Seb?

Yet again I read Mumsnet and wonder which of us is removed from reality. Only on this site have I heard serious criticism of Coe. Comments re the ticketing and the Visa thing yes absolutely, but to not acknowledge that overall he did a fucking amazing job winning the thing and then delivering it, seems, well just a bit weird really.

Delivery was not just up to Coe & Co. HM armed forces, the Met, Transport for London and LOADS of volunteers did a lot to smooth things "on the day".

My intervention was focussed on his inappropriate and insensitive reaction to shopowners' and restauranteurs' dismay about visitors who hadbeen scared off. "Should have been prepared" is a cynical and disingenuous argument. He can have my dislike for thst dishonesty alone.

Keen to know where I said that Coe was solely responsible for the delivery.

Well, you did say: "overall he did a fucking amazing job winning the thing and then delivering it".

In any case, the point about disliking him is that he is/was the front man, who represents the event, and that means representing the event/LOCOG in the face of failures as well as successes. I think he and others have been remarkably shifty about addressing criticism, preferring to deflect ("oh, you're miserable", "oh, you just want it to fail", "oh, it will be great") rather than engage with the criticisms.

And laughing about the success of Olympic messaging in reducing visitors to London - and reducing business takings as a consequence, in the middle of a recession - is crass and unpleasant. It really is not nice to reveal that you don't really have to care.

Mr Deighton appeared to accept that the warning messages had some unforeseen consequences. ?Sometimes you are victims of your own success, ? he said.

As Mr Deighton was sharing a platform with Lord Coe, the Locog chairman. As he spoke, Lord Coe laughed loudly and mocked a question from a BBC London reporter, saying: ?Shock horror ? messaging too good.?

Asked why he was laughing at questions about the Games? impact on London businesses, Lord Coe replied: ?I was laughing at the idea that our messaging was too successful.?

Locog officials later insisted that Lord Coe had not been laughing at the concerns of businesses, but at the journalists asking questions about those concerns.

According to this report, in the Telegraph, Coe wasn't even being asked anything, and interrupted a rather more responsive, substantive and responsible answer by LOCOG chief executive Paul Deighton. He (Coe) would have done better to have kept his mouth shut, but instead annoyed a lot more people! Hardly the sort of foot-in-mouth person I'd want as the face of an international organisation!