As the Czech Army officer defied team orders and quietly slipped into Wembley Stadium for the opening ceremony – he was supposed to be saving his energy for his race the next day – he recalled, as his eyes gazed towards the Royal Box: "For me, it was a liberation of spirit to be there in London.

"After all those dark days of war, the bombing, the killing and the starvation, the revival of the Olympics was as if the sun had come out."

The sun did truly shine on Zatopek. Winner of the 10,000 metres, this crowd favourite then agonisingly lost the 5,000 metres by 0.2 seconds, despite an astonishing late sprint, before going on to win an unprecedented three gold medals at Helsinki four years later – a feat of endurance still unmatched today.

Yet, to Zatopek, it was the Olympic ideal of Citius, Altius, Fortius – faster, higher, stronger – that mattered more than any success.

For, when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia during the Second World War, he joined the army. And, instead of running on roads, he ran in his army boots during his guard duty, training every day regardless of weather, and used a flashlight to run in the dark.

It was a story typical of sport six decades ago. For, while the 1948 Games will always be known as the "Ration Book Olympics" because of Britain's austerity following the war, they also had a clear objective that Zatopek expressed so eloquently.

To him, and his fellow competitors, the fact that the Olympics were alive, after being hijacked by Hitler in 1936 and then the advent of war, was the story.

It did not matter that competitors had inadequate training equipment, were billeted with local families, travelled to venues by Tube and lived off a ration-book diet unless their country had sent additional food supplies.

A shoestring budget of £732,000 meant these were "beg, borrow and steal" Olympics. From this, a modest profit of £29,420 was returned (of which £9,000 was paid in tax to the Treasury).

Yet, in many respects, it is the spirit of 1948 that the Government needs to rekindle if the tarnished reputation of the 2012 Games is to be salvaged.

For, as Britain suffers the full force of the credit crunch and economic downturn, it is becoming increasingly obscene – even to committed sports enthusiasts like myself – that so much public money is being squandered on the London Olympics.

And, as the country plunges even deeper into recession, 2012 organisers will face a massive backlash if the final bill gathers pace even quicker than Zatopek did on the final laps of his epic encounters.

When the bid was finalised, it
was supposed to be £3bn. Now the total is at least £9bn. And, with Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell admitting that security is going to be "very tough" to get right, I'd wager a small bet that the final bill reaches at least £12bn.

Yet Jowell, and her cohorts, clearly do not realise that it is the public's money that they are spending –
and taxpayers outside London will derive virtually no benefit from
this jamboree.

Take her recent remark that the Government could have staged "a tin-shed Olympics" in London's East End for £500m, and that the
public's scepticism is the media's fault.

"The media will tend to focus on one element of the overall budget and say, 'Ah, the costs have gone up'," she procrastinated.

"But actually what happens is you see increases... in one area of the budget and then the work goes on to bring them down in another."

Do you? Have you seen any evidence of this? I haven't.

To me, 2012 is fast becoming the "spend, spend, spend Olympics" – and for London's almost near-exclusive benefit.

It might just be acceptable if every region was going to gain from the grassroots sporting revolution which was supposed to be the 2012 legacy.

Yet this promise appears to possess more "spin" when one considers, for example, that the Government's much-vaunted £142m scheme to encourage swimming will, in fact, be bankrolled by the lottery, and at a time when countless public baths are being closed.

And, when the Olympics is blamed for the Department of Culture being unable to repair the crumbling ceilings and façades at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, iconic buildings that symbolise this nation's heritage, then the 2012 organisers are losing the credibility race.

I recently heard 2012 chairman Lord Sebastian Coe, that great son of Sheffield and middle-distance hero, say that it was imperative that London built the best possible venues and facilities for competitors.

But, in these financially challenging times, why shouldn't participants be billeted at the homes of ordinary Londoners if the "sport for all" message is to be transported to
the masses?

Why shouldn't visiting nations fund their own training and travel costs?

And what's wrong with athletes catching the Tube to the Olympic stadium, assuming that the trains are running?

After all, such sacrifices were made without complaint by Zatopek and his comrades 60 years ago, and it would free up some much-needed money
to reinvigorate community sport across Britain.

This issue should be uppermost in the thoughts of the London team when the Olympic baton is passed to them in Beijing.

Yet when you consider that this party will comprise Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who may not be in office in four years' time, a discredited Olympics Minister, Tessa Jowell, who is equally unlikely to still be in post, the aforementioned Lord Coe and Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London who will face a re-election contest in the weeks prior to the 2012 Olympics, then you will understand why I have lost confidence in their ability to organise the Games on time – and
on budget.

If they were a relay team, this motley crew would be odds-on certainties to drop the baton at the first change-over – unlike their counterparts in 1948 who enabled the likes of Emil Zatopek to define
the Olympic spirit.