When Jacques Rogge, the President of the International Olympics Committee, says the Olympic movement is in “crisis” it is time to listen. By revolution or evolution, the Games will have to change beyond 2012 so that the Olympic ideal can survive.

But the Games have weathered previous crises, just as dramatic as the controversy surrounding the Beijing Games. The worst I can recall in the eight Olympics I have attended was Mexico City in 1968. Ten days before the Games, students and soldiers clashed - the infamous Tlatelolco massacre - leaving at least 200 dead and 1,200 injured. More trouble was to come.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two black American sprinters, mounted the rostrum for the 200m victory ceremony. As the American flag unfurled and the first bars of The Star-Spangled Banner struck up, Smith and Carlos raised their gloved fists in the Black Power salute. The officials were too stunned to stop the winners' podium being used as a platform for overt political protest.

I remember other Games: the 1972 Munich Games when 11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped by terrorists, and died during a clumsy police rescue; the Cold War boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 Games; the 1988 Seoul Olympics when Ben Johnson was caught doping. All this happened against the backdrop of accusations that some IOC members took bribes in return for awarding the Games to certain cities; and of IOC neglect of the extent of drug use, fearing that recognition of its pernicious and pervasive influence was bad news for spectators and sponsors, who would never know whether what they saw were triumphs of nature or drugs. With more than 20,000 competitors from 205 countries and hundreds of millions of television viewers, today's Games provide an ever more irresistible target for protest and terrorism. It also makes the stakes much higher for the IOC if it is to learn from past and present crises to protect the future of the Olympic movement.

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Mr Rogge has made much progress. Now bribery in the selection between rival Olympic sites has been outlawed by handing it over to a committee of experts. He also declared on his appointment his intention to fight against drug abuse. We should all have in the back of our minds East Germany: it achieved 600 times as many medals per citizen as the United States. Only after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Stasi files became public, did the truth come out. Thirty thousand East German athletes were given, sometimes without their knowledge, anabolic steroids and other drugs that fuelled their extraordinary performances - and in some cases resulted in the masculinisation of women competitors. But progress with random testing could, and should have, been faster - and, disappointingly, the Chinese have decided not to attempt to test for human growth hormone, now suspected of being used.

Another problem is the sheer scale of the Games: only half a dozen countries in the world are now wealthy enough to host them. The likelihood of a Latin American or African nation ever hosting them looks unpromising.

Perhaps there is a lesson from the first Games I saw, the London Olympics of 1948. Their scale was admirably manageable. Germany and Italy were excluded and Russia was not yet a member of the World Athletic Body. A mere 5,000 athletes were lodged in the huts of RAF Uxbridge. No new venues were built - and the total cost ran to just £750,000. From war-torn Europe the stars were Fanny Blankers-Koen, who won three gold medals in sprint and hurdles, and the newcomer Emil Zátopek, who startled us by winning the 10,000m in devastating style.

The Games could be ruthlessly pared back. Mr Rogge's opening shot when he became President was to resist pressures to include more sports by saying that nothing could be added without an existing sport being dropped. Needless to say, no changes were made. Could a list be drawn up for potential trimming? So many sports already have world championships that their duplication at the Olympics appear redundant. Sports involving complicated, expensive equipment and elaborate venues would also be vulnerable. Howls of anguish would follow but if the Olympic Games are “in crisis” it is necessary to think the unthinkable.

It has often been debated whether the Games should take place at a permanent site. Greece, historic home of the Olympics, has the venues - built for the 2004 Games - ready for re-use. If the principle of rotating the Games must be retained, other ways must be found to make the size and cost of the Games more easily borne by smaller cities. To help poorer countries a subvention based on the GDP of the participating nations might be possible. In any event, we should be more careful in planning to avoid the scandal of Olympic facilities lying idle after the Games.

And do we need the ever-expanded torch relays that have had such an unhappy time this year? After all, they were a late accretion developed by Hitler. Extravagant opening and closing ceremonies are more to do with boosting national pride than an essential part of the Games.

The ancient Games survived 500 years, despite wars and corruption. Our modern Olympics have been going for a mere 100 years and it would be sad to see them collapse under the insupportable burden of cost, size and protests. The IOC will clearly examine all facets of the Olympics, root and branch. In one sense the Olympic Games are a victim of their own success. But to preserve one of the few movements whose effect is beneficial to rich and poor in all parts of the world, bold thinking is needed.

Sir Roger Bannister competed in the 1952 Helsinki Games. In 1954 he broke the four-minute mile, won the Empire Games mile and the European 1,500m

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