One British newspaper on Thursday quoted a remark made by Prime Minister Tony Blair to London Mayor Ken Livingstone that "everyone would say 'fantastic' when we won the Olympics, then you'd have six years of complaining."

In the light of events over the last few months, Blair's observation neatly sums up London's early progress towards delivering its promises for the 2012 sporting festival.

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Sixteen months on, however, and the reality of the huge task faced by the London 2012 organising committee (LOCOG) and its partners is really hitting home.

Resignation of a key figure, public mud-slinging, political squabbling and alarming newspaper headlines about spiralling costs have given plenty of ammunition to feed the cynical underbelly of a British public.

Memories of the Millennium Dome white elephant, the Picketts Lock world athletics championships fiasco and the much-delayed Wembley Stadium completion, meant the honeymoon period for LOCOG chairman Sebastian Coe was always going to be a short one.

Until the October resignation of American businessman Jack Lemley as chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), however, London 2012 had been relatively trouble-free.

Lemley's sudden exit, less than a year after he was trumpeted by Olympic Minister Tessa Jowell as the man to oversee the building of the Olympic Park, appears to have opened a can of worms.

Just weeks after he said the reasons for his leaving were to spend more time on his business interests in America, the 71-year-old told the Idaho Statesman newspaper that the real reasons were a lack of progress with the London project, concerns about budgets and timescales and political squabbling.

"I went there to build things, not to sit and talk," Lemley said. "I thought it best to leave the post and come home."

A day later Scotland Yard chief Ian Blair said the 2012 Olympics would be "a huge" target for terrorists.

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