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Athletics could ensure survival of 2012 venue
Matthew Beard, Sports News Correspondent27 Jan 2009
CITY Hall chiefs are thinking of making a bid to host the world athletics championships in the 2012 Olympic stadium so that it avoids becoming a white elephant after the Games.
Mayor Boris Johnson is expected to set up an Olympic Park management company as early as next week to consider a number of one-off major sports events to be held at the 80,000-seat venue.
Legacy planners want to maximise revenues from the stadium in the years after the Games and are prepared to put on hold plans to reduce its capacity to 25,000 seats.
The championships are held every two years and the governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, has yet to decide on a host for 2013 and 2015.
Other events being eyed by City Hall include rugby league finals and the National Football League's annual American football fixture currently held at Wembley.
The £60million basketball arena might also survive if a top event can be attracted to the 12,000-seat facility.
Reader views (6)
Unfortunately most things that it can be used for (local schools, athletics facilities), takes a lot of money to maintain, which means it would be operating at a loss for years to come, bit like the dome until O2 saved it. Bit mistified why a football club couldnt have used it / bought it as Munich did? Obviously no-one though about it at the time and its become too expensive to convert. Thats useless, overpaid consultants for you....
- Dc, London, 30/01/2009 10:52
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Not a bad idea if it comes off but this musn't be seen by Boris as an alternative to proper legacy and he needs to think hard about what will happen to the park legacy between the Olympics and the hypothetical world championships if this is what he wants. Call me a cynic but I suspect he hasn't given it a moment's thought.
I can't help but think this is Olympic standard buck passing. Boris doesn't seem to have the guile to try be the person who oversees the conversion of the park to its long-term legacy mode so he's shooting for an event that will keep the legacy-issue under the surface until someone else is mayor.
- Robh, London / Kent, 27/01/2009 15:26
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I've said it before: why are we allowing a venue to be designed and built for a one-off occasion? It is absolute madness.
Any infrastructure that is created because of this unwanted project should at least be left as a legacy to the country for continued use in the years after the Olympics.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, 27/01/2009 15:23
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It clearly takes a genius to work out that the best thing the olympic athletics stadium could become is a world class athletics venue!!! Let's use it to train our future olympic athletes - in the same way that all the cyclists have been training together for several years now and look how that has improved things!
- Andy, London, 27/01/2009 12:52
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A white elephant - nothing more, nothing less. This generation and future generations of tax payers could be saved MILLIONS of pounds if we scrapped the games and invested the money in jobs and schools. Unfortunately such a move would not be a boost to Coe's or Jowell's egos - but better to have two disappointed people than millions of tax payers penalised for decades
- Ross, Yorks, UK, 27/01/2009 12:48
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so it will be used for one more week - genius
- Fly, london, 27/01/2009 10:06
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