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Olympic sports chiefs fly in to break venue deadlock
Matthew Beard, Sports News Correspondent08.10.09
Top officials from two sports will fly to London next week as 2012 chiefs seek to resolve a deadlock over Olympic venues.
London 2012 organisers will show officials for badminton and rhythmic gymnastics two potential sites after receiving a high-level warning to end
the uncertainty.
The two sports, without an agreed competition venue, will be shown sites in Wembley Arena and a brownfield plot in Barking.
Badminton and gymnastics, which will share a venue for technical reasons, were to have been played in a purpose-built £25 million arena in
Greenwich, but that is due to be abandoned by Games chiefs to save costs.
The fact-finding mission comes as the International Olympic Committee added to the pressure on London 2012 yesterday.
At the IOC's annual meeting in Copenhagen, its chief inspector for London, Denis Oswald called for a solution by next month.
Oswald, chairman of the IOC's co-ordination commission, said: “London has still not yet achieved the final masterplan and the venue is still under discussion.
I have to express a concern that three years before the Games the venue has not been finalised, but meetings are going to take place with these federations within coming week and we are confident a solution can be found.
“It's urgent that the masterplan be finalised and we hope this will be done before next visit of co-ordination commission in November.”
The issue of venues will be top of the agenda at next week's meeting of the Olympic board, featuring Boris Johnson, Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, the British Olympic Association and 2012 chief Sebastian Coe. The Mayor is calling for a shake-up which he calculates could save £34 million.
Lord Coe, chairman of the organising committee, Locog, said: “We will resolve this — the federations quite sensibly are going to reserve their views until they have had a chance to go to the venues. We want them to help us in making the judgments and we are not driving them towards any particular solution.
“We have married all the other sports to venues based on the three simple principles of cost, legacy and athlete experience and we will get these two sports in the right venue with the best
balance of these principles.”
Coe also told IO C members that preparations were ahead of schedule and the venues and Olympic Stadium would be ready “in plenty of time to test and practise”.
News of the negotiations came as the firm running the building project for the Games announced plans to axe up to 1,000 mainly administrative jobs.
Laing O'Rourke, based in Dartford, Kent, won the £100 million Olympic contract in 2006, and is overseeing construction of Games arenas and the
athletes' village.
Reader views (1)
We note, in complete agreement, the Mayor’s comments seeking savings by urging LOCOG to move the shooting venue away from Woolwich.
Woolwich fails on four counts:
1. It is not big enough for the fall of shot and therefore totally unsafe
2. It is a suburban, Grade 1 listed site, totally unsuitable for live shooting
3. The costs of solving these issues (a safety fence and a massive clean up operation) raise the total cost to wholly unreasonable levels.
4. The venue is wholly temporary and not one iota of legacy will be left behind.
If the venue remains at Woolwich, London will be faced with a financial and PR disaster. Firstly you will be spending up to £20m more than you need to in a recession, and second, you, LOCOG and the Government will spend the next 3 years explaining why you are flouting the most basic of shooting safety rules.
That a multi million pound 20m fence obscures the Barracks and thus the entire point of being there is one matter; the fact that it doesn’t stop all the shot from falling on public roads and houses is quite another. The vandalism perpetrated on one of London’s prestigious listed heritage sites is also a matter of extreme concern.
London 2012 has been looking for a shooting venue which is safe enough, large enough, near enough, accessible enough, cheap enough and spectacular enough and the answer has been available to them all along.
DARTFORD CLAY SHOOTING CLUB - A DARTFORD VENUE IS SAFE, ACCESSIBLE AND WILL REDUCE THE BURDEN ON LONDON’S
- Mjm,, Dartford, UK
