It's won the Olympics - but will London be ready?

TAKE a trip around London for the day and you'll find yourself on a tour of the world. You can hear Turkish in Tottenham, wear saris in Southall, eat plantains in Peckham, and buy baklava in Bayswater.

Over 300 languages are spoken in the city, making it one of the most multicultural on earth. This was one of the main selling points in London's bid for the 2012 Olympics - and last Wednesday it worked.

The British, and especially Londoners, can be cynical and apathetic. But there's still plenty of room for national pride and a big party when it comes to sport. Thousands of revelers packed Trafalgar Square after the bid announcement, some of them in tears, all with the overwhelming conviction that London deserved to win.

In the midst of the flag-waving crowd was East Londoner Gordon McSweeney. "London is without a doubt one of the most fantastic cities in the world," he said. "It has so much going for it and so many great ideas."

It was this pride and enthusiasm that served to sway the International Olympic Committee (IOC). In recent years, London has been the focal point for a renewed British sporting passion. Whether it's rugby (festivities spilled out of the ever-popular Trafalgar Square after the 2003 World Cup victory), motor racing (when Formula 1 cars whizzed through central London's streets last summer) or the Olympics themselves (with a ticker-tape parade on a red double-decker bus for 2004 medal winners), the city has celebrated sport in style.

But it was the promised makeover of London's creaking transport system and dilapidated East End that really got the popular vote. And now London has won the games, the race is on to fulfill these promises in time for 2012.

Britain has its work cut out. Seven years may seem like a long time, but other large-scale projects like Heathrow Airport's Terminal Five and the West London tram have been in the planning stage since the '90s and are still not finished. The construction process, with its extensive bureaucracy and public consultation, is notoriously slow.

In their evaluation report, the IOC inspectors warned London that careful planning would be needed to make sure all their building projects and transport improvements were completed on time. The world is watching.

And Londoners are cynical. Having put up with congested roads and a crumbling underground train system for the last few decades, very few believe it can be brought up to scratch in seven years. Trains are old, under-maintained and constantly delayed, and many have no heating or air conditioning. London Transport Commissioner Bob Kiley called the situation "embarrassing and unacceptable."

Buses, trains and cars travel at an average of 4 miles an hour in central London, meaning it's often quicker to walk. The Olympic athletes are supposed to be able to get to their venues, some of which are on the other side of London, in half an hour.

Improvements to the underground lines in north and east London, as well as proposed links to the rail line to France, will improve the situation. But the Crossrail, an east-west train line that would have provided speedy access from Heathrow Airport to the Olympic village, will not be finished by 2012.

The Olympic village itself, though, is providing plenty of reason for optimism. House prices at the site in Stratford, East London, are predicted to jump before the Olympics in the same way as Athens' (by 63 per cent) and Sydney's (by 50 per cent) did. The village will be used as an education centre when the Olympics are over, and the transport improvements will also help the area.

And it needs plenty of help. While the rest of East London is quickly joining the 'up and coming' category, Stratford and its surroundings remain in dire poverty. It is in the top 5% most deprived areas of England. The number of people claiming welfare is over three times the national average, and car crime and robbery offences are over double.

While crime is high, Stratford also has an abysmal clear-up rate - just 19 per cent of the cases are solved. This is a reflection of London as a whole, where on average just 20 per cent of criminals are caught. The city also has the highest crime rate in Europe, with over a million offences being committed a year.

"It's a constant battle," said Sergeant Phil Murray of the Metropolitan Police. "There are rich pickings here, combined with a transient population. It's easy for criminals." With large numbers of unsuspecting tourists flocking to the capital in 2012, policing will have to get tougher.

The Beijing Olympics are still three years away, so London must learn its lessons from last year's Athens games. The Greek capital overcame its legendary traffic problems with a sparkling new transport system; all its facilities were completed in time (although landscaping and other finishing touches were sometimes missing); and it has the highest crime clear-up rate in Europe at 66 per cent.

London has a long way to go before it can reach that goal, and the winning of the Olympic bid was just the first hurdle. It will take a Herculean effort to hit the target set by Athens. London's spirit is willing - but, unfortunately, its infrastructure is weak.

Photos courtesy of Getty Images and BBC.co.uk