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Games chiefs identify team training sites across capital
Matthew Beard, Evening Standard04.03.08
Almost 100 sports venues in London have been identified as potential training venues for the 2012 Olympics.
The facilities - across 30 boroughs - have been approved by Games chiefs as possible warm-up places for competing nations. They will be on a list to be distributed to the 205 nations at the Beijing Games this summer.
Olympic chiefs want to maximise the nations training here and have offered each a £25,000 voucher redeemable at any of the 600 venues.
The list includes facilities owned by professional and community clubs, schools and universities suitable for 28 of 36 events. They include seven possible sports at Clissold Leisure Centre in Stoke Newington, a Lottery-funded project that went over budget and was beset by problems including a leaking roof.
The capital's shortage of Olympicstandard swimming pools is highlighted; only two pools make the London list - the planned Hillingdon facility and mothballed Crystal Palace.
The list will fuel claims that east London stands to benefit most. Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Greenwich - have, on average, double the number of approved facilities.
