London Olympics chief Sebastian Coe vowed on Thursday that the new era of austerity in Europe will not rob the games of its lustre as he began a six-month countdown to the competition.
In an interview at the Davos economic forum, where Europe's financial woes have dominated proceedings, Coe said London 2012 organisers had no major financial headaches and denied it would burden British tax-payers.
Britain is the first European nation to host the Olympics since debt-addled Greece in 2004.
Coe told AFP that rather than being a strain on the public purse, the Olympics had been an "absolute Godsend" to the British economy in providing jobs and contracts to mainly domestic firms.
"The Olympics has been a fantastic catalyst in a very difficult economic environment, domestically and globally," said Coe, a former lawmaker for the ruling Conservatives.
Coe said that financial prudence had been the watchword of his organising committee ever since it won the right in July 2005 to stage the games.
"We have always been very tight as an organising committee with our budget," he said.
"When we were bidding, we were bidding at the high water mark of the global economy but we were still talking about delivering the games responsibly."
Despite the global downturn, Coe said that big business had still shown a willingness to associate itself with the world's biggest sporting event and he was in Davos in large part to pay thanks to business leaders.
"We set ourselves a target of £700 million in terms of sponsorship and partnership revenue and we reached that target a year in advance -- that's a seismic achievement," he said.
"The business community is on board and in a very big way."
The last Olympics in Beijing four years ago were a lavish affair, in particular the epic opening ceremony, which was garlanded by pyrotechnics.
Coe however steered clear of any suggestion that London would have to kick things off in a more low-key fashion on July 27.
"The beauty of the Olympics is that they are all different. Cities do not set out to compete with one another," he said.
"The opening ceremony will be proportional but we will be respecting the fact that there will be over 200 nations present and over 100 heads of state. It will be a fabulous opening ceremony, an opportunity to showcase Britain."
He insisted the idea that Greece's financial woes stemmed from the Olympics was off the mark: "I think the Olympics was not part of that."
Instead, he suggested future generations of Londoners will enjoy the fruits of an upgraded public transport system and a regeneration of the traditionally deprived east of the capital.
Coe's own high point as an Olympian came in 1980 when he won gold in the 1,500 metres in Moscow. He repeated the achievement four years later in Los Angeles.
The Moscow games however was marred by a boycott of US athletes and this year's tournament comes at a time when Iran and Syria are being increasingly isolated by the West.
Coe said he was not naive enough to think that politics could be kept entirely out of sport but that it could be a "great bridge head in the international community."
"I like to think that in Moscow I was there in the infancy of change" that ultimately led to the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
Coe was joined in Davos by Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who unveiled an ice sculpture of east London.
"Today I am proud to say that we have taken several cubic metres of Thames water, champagne water, and we have brought it to Davos. We have brought ice to Switzerland," he declared to laughter.
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