The designers of the Olympic Stadium in Stratford east London have hailed its completion as “the beginning of the end” for the construction phase of the 2012 Games.
As International Olympic Committee (IOC) inspectors arrived for a three-day visit to check on progress, organizers hoped the good news on the completion of the Stratford stadium would overshadow an ongoing row with the British Olympic Association over how any hypothetical profit would be distributed.
Lord Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, watched Frankie Fredericks, a four-time Olympic silver medalist, lay the last piece of turf on the infield.
Photo: Reuters
The £486 million (US$781 million) stadium is the second major venue on the Olympic Park to be finished, after the Velodrome was unveiled earlier last month.
“I do not want anybody to run away with the idea that this stadium is ready to stage a track-and-field championship tomorrow, but as a chairman of an organizing committee to be able to tick off this venue is terrific. It is fantastic. I think it will be an intimate theater for sport and it has fantastic legacy potential, too,” Coe said.
Fredericks, who is taking part in the IOC inspection visit, said the stadium ranked alongside any he raced in.
“It’s a perfect stadium for track and field ... it’s a great, great stadium,” the Namibian, who was runner-up in 100m and 200m in Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996, said as he stood astride a chalk line on the black tarmac to mark the finish on the track that will be installed later this year.
“I remember when Michael Johnson beat me in Atlanta in the 200m and broke the world record and I’m sure he was inspired by the stadium,” Fredericks said. “I hope that will be the case again with the athletes competing in London. I’m sure it will.”
Work began on the 80,000-seat stadium in May 2008 and the Olympic Delivery Authority, which is responsible for spending £8.1 billion of public money on the infrastructure to host the Games, said its completion was a “huge milestone.”
“The Olympic Stadium has been finished on time and under budget,” said ODA chairman John Armitt.
Rod Sheard, of stadium architects Populous, said he was looking forward to watching “this innovative design perform for the first time.”
“Its completion marks the beginning of the end of the construction phase of London’s Olympic Games,” he said.
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