London 2012 security might soar to £59,000 per athlete

That is about US$91,500. Incredible numbers, but Athens 2004 security ended up costing £90,000 per athlete, so it might actually be a bargain. There will be more British troops stationed in London than in Afghanistan, with police also stepping in after most G4S security guards fail to turn up for work. Read The Guardian

It is important to remember that all this is ostensibly designed to secure the spectacle of 17,000 athletes competing for 17 days. Even if London’s overall security budget remains similar to that of Athens, that works out at the startling figure of £59,000 of public money to secure each competitor or £3,500 per competitor per day. In 2004, the cost in now-bankrupt Athens was £90,000 per competitor (for a smaller number of athletes than are likely to attend London). This was a major contributor, as part of the overall £10bn costs, to Greece’s subsequent debt crisis.

Image of a British Starstreak HVM System during Olympic exercise courtesy of UK Ministry of Defence, CC BY-NC 2.0

This is also quite the rant, from that article in the Guardian:

During the Games an aircraft carrier will dock on the Thames. Surface-to-air missile systems will scan the skies. Unmanned drones, thankfully without lethal missiles, will loiter above the gleaming stadiums and opening and closing ceremonies. RAF Typhoon Eurofighters will fly from RAF Northolt. A thousand armed US diplomatic and FBI agents and 55 dog teams will patrol an Olympic zone partitioned off from the wider city by an 11-mile, £80m, 5,000-volt electric fence.