That was the daunting task for organisers and sportsmen alike as Britain's Olympians returned from Beijing 2008 having raised the bar in so many ways.

The secret, however, is not to copy Beijing, but to learn the lessons from a Games where money was no object and whose political agenda was to charm the West as much as to provide the greatest festival of sport the world has seen.

The No 1 lesson for London is that the spectators are as important as the athletes – something at times Beijing, in its attempts to impress the world, forgot.

For the best part of the first week the 2008 Olympics were the no-fun Games, played out in an Olympic Park which was vast enough to house half-a-million spectators but on which fans appeared dotted around as sparsely as sheep on Exmoor.

The Chinese made the mistake of only allowing ticketed fans into the Olympic Park and with the Bird's Nest stadium essentially empty until the athletics began it meant vast areas remained just that – empty.

There was little attempt to lay on entertainment, few big screens, apart from those atop huge skyscrapers, no sense of an Olympic experience. No sense of the carnival which was such an important element of the Games in Sydney in 2000.

Only in the second week when the ticketing situation had
been relaxed and when the stadium opened did huge crowds appear to take their photos of the magnificent National Stadium, the stunning Olympic flame and the impressive Water Cube which housed the aquatics events.

Only then did the Olympics come to life for the people of Beijing.

London are unlikely to make such a mistake. The Olympic Park at Stratford is more compact, housing more of the main events and with the British mania for sport no venues are likely to see the rows of empty seats which were a feature of the Olympic tennis tournament here.

London, with its lure for celebrities and pop stars and its tradition for laying on concerts, could be the Rock n' Roll Olympics in a way which the Chinese could never envisage.

No-one would expect Britain to match the resources of China or the financial might of America.

But if Beijing has taught London anything, it is to aim high.