Richard Caborn: ‘Olympic legacy in danger of failing completely’

• Former sports minister says fall of participation is disastrous • Caborn wants strategy change to stop grassroots decline The sports minister who helped to shape the legacy promises that won London the 2012 Olympics has claimed one of them – the drive to increase sports participation – has been “disastrous” and called for an urgent change of strategy. Richard Caborn, the sports minister when the bid was won in 2005 with a stirring speech from Lord Coe about the legacy it would leave for east London, sport and the youth of the world, said the participation drive was in danger of “failing completely”. “The Olympics will be a spectacular success but we are not capitalising on that. We are in danger of failing completely on the long-term sporting legacy of the Games,” Caborn said. “There needs a major change of direction in the strategy on this if the disastrous decline experienced by many of the sports is to be reversed.” Caborn plans to elaborate on his warning in a keynote speech at the annual meeting of the Sports and Recreation Trust Association in Birmingham on Wednesday. One of the many ambitious legacy promises attached to London’s bid by the

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