Britain announce new deals as it marks 200-day countdown to Olympic Games
LONDON, England (AFP) — London marked 200 days to go until the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in an upbeat mood yesterday, announcing new deals to secure the future of the mostly completed sites.
Prime Minister David Cameron led a special meeting of his Cabinet at the Olympic Park in east London, where he said organisers were “well on track”.
The government announced yesterday that ownership deals had been agreed for the Aquatics Centre, the Handball Arena and Anish Kapoor’s 115-metre (377-foot) high red steel Orbit sculpture, ensuring they will survive beyond the Games.
The operator of the spectacular Aquatics Centre expects 800,000 local users every year, while the Handball Arena hopes to welcome half-a-million people a year for concerts and sporting events.
“Today, as we mark 200 days to go, and six out of the eight Olympic venues having already secured their future, we are well on track to delivering a lasting legacy for the whole of Britain,” Cameron said.
As London prepares to become the first city to host the Olympics for the third time, most of the venues are completed and tickets for all events — except hundreds of thousands still available for football — are sold out.
A once rundown area of scrapyards and workshops has been transformed into a collection of high-tech sports venues, thousands of apartments and, eventually, a park.
Jonathan Edwards, Olympic triple jump champion in 2000 and part of the organising committee, said that in past Games the tenants for facilities have often been found only after the event.
“It is a remarkable success that you have six of the eight major venues within the Olympic Park with legacy tenants,” he said.
The excitement is building, but it has been marred by the disappointment of hundreds of thousands of British fans who missed out on tickets for the Games in last year’s lottery, amid massive demand.
There were red faces when organisers LOCOG admitted last week they had mistakenly oversold tickets for synchronised swimming sessions and were forced to offer people places at other events.
Adding to their blushes, the website for recipients to resell tickets they do not want has been suspended due to technical problems.
Edwards said: “Everybody wants to be in the Olympic Park or at one of the venues, so I think a lot of the unease around the ticketing process has just been because people have been disappointed.”
An additional one million tickets are due to go on sale in April once the final layout of the venues is worked out.
As the clock ticks down to the July 27 opening ceremony, chief organiser Sebastian Coe said the acid test would be whether athletes could be delivered to their respective events on time, and ready to compete.
“I never want an athlete telling me he did not make a final because the Olympic Village did not create the right atmosphere, or he did not get the right service, or the transport did not work,” Coe told the Evening Standard newspaper.
In a congested city like London, transport is one of the biggest issues the Games face.
Specially reserved Olympic road lanes, reserved for athletes, officials and the media are designed to ensure competitors are not delayed, but they are likely to cause traffic snarl-ups elsewhere.
British ministers are hoping the Olympics and the celebrations marking Queen Elizabeth II’s 60 years on the throne this year will help lift the country out of the economic doldrums, as it faces the real prospect of a return to recession.
But Cameron has faced criticism for ordering an additional 41 million ($63 million, 50 million euros) to be spent on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games.
The security operation is extensive, with 13,500 troops on duty, while two navy ships, warplanes and ground-to-air missiles will be deployed within a budget that has risen sharply to 553 million.