The Week In Week Out programme, broadcast on BBC Wales, claimed to have found concerns among grassroots club that money has been diverted from them to help the Games.

 

Dr Calvin Jones, an expert on the economics of major sporting events from the Cardiff Business School, claimed no Olympic city or nation has managed to see a growth in participation levels as a result of staging the Games.

 

He said: "In Sydney, Barcelona, in Athens, no Olympic City or nation has seen any upward swing in participation levels, in Olympic or non-Olympic sports following hosting of the Games.

 

"Not a single sporting event has ever been shown to have a long-term economic benefit for the country or region in question that hosted that event.

 

"I think lots of quite clever people in sports consultancies, marketing companies and sports organising bodies have become very adept, very clever at getting lots of money out of the public sector on the basis that there will be long-term benefits that will never be actually measured."

 

But Sebastian Coe, the chairman of London 2012, interviewed for the programme, defended the Games and claimed that Wales would feel the benefits.

 

He said:  "A lot of my time is spent travelling around the United Kingdom because I'm determined that although we won the right to stage the Games in London, it's also seen as a UK-wide project.

 

"It's the only sustainable way we can maintain this project for the next four-and-a-half years."

 

Earlier this month, during a trip to Wrexham, Coe had to defend the lack of contracts connected to the Olympics awarded to Welsh companies so far.

 

But he claimed on the programme that the benefits of the Olympics should be measured in more than just economic benefits.

 

Coe said: "It's very important there is a softer legacy as well.

 

"It's about coaching, it's about parental involvement, it's about using sport as a bridgehead into educational and cultural values."