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The Prosser Perspective.... a weekly column from Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser

14 August 2008

With the Beijing Olympics well under way plans for our own 2012 Games are firming up and on the 24th August in Dover and in Deal we’ll be unfurling official London 2012 Handover Flags to mark the moment when the UK officially becomes the next host of the Olympic Games.

The same ceremonies will be taking place all over the country of course but ours will be extra special because as well as raising the flags in anticipation of the next Olympics we’ll be remembering the last Games held in the UK in 1948 when the torch entered the Country through Dover – and we’ll be stepping up our campaign to ensure that the Olympic Torch comes across the Channel and crosses White Cliffs Country on its way to the Capital in 2012.

Dover deserves this special honour. After all we are the Gateway Constituency and for centuries Dover has been the way into Britain . Our iconic White Cliffs are known the world over and to generations of travellers their first glimpse of Great Britain has been the sighting of our famous chalk battlements towering over the English Channel .

And we’ve proved ourselves capable of hosting international sporting events in Dover – we organised one of the key stages of the Tour de France in 1994 and last year we staged the highly successful World Archery Grand Prix in Dover .

In addition to these obvious attributes, by 2012 Dover will be linked to London by the High Speed Bullet Trains and all our other ambitious regeneration projects will be progressing. The interest generated by the spectacle of the Olympic Torch coming over the White Cliffs – televised across the globe to an audience of over a billion people – would be a great catalyst to regeneration.

As to the current Olympics, the pundits have all been forecasting a bumper number of medals for Team GB and so far they look like being right.

Having some local interest always adds to the enjoyment that we spectators get from the Games and I was especially thrilled to watch Nicole Cooke win Britain ’s very first Gold Medal in the cycling road race in Beijing on Sunday. Nicole was born and brought up in my native Swansea , she’s been a popular rising star in Wales for the last ten years but now she’s a world-beating international star and we are all very proud of her.

Another star worth watching in Beijing is the 32 year old Dover-born hockey player, Melanie Clewlow. Melanie is the most capped Home National Player past or present, she captains Great Britain ’s Women’s Hockey team and with 250 caps to her credit she was bound to make an impression in China . She scored the crucial goal against Argentina that kept us in the tournament and kept alive our prospects of picking up another medal.

Nicole and Melanie and all the other Brits competing in Beijing are a great example to us all and they’ll prove to be real inspiration to the young athletes who are already gearing up for the London Olympics in 2012.