Main 2012 Olympic competition venues handed over to organisers

[divingbrit]

Here are the keys to the park! Main 2012 Olympic competition venues handed over to organisers

Building work on the Olympic Park has been officially completed and with 200 days to go to the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Games, the nine main competition venues have now been handed over to organisers for 'fitting out'.

Organisers, who announced new names for a number of the venues on Monday, will now begin the process of installing all the sports equipment, timing and scoring equipment, and other temporary features.

London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe said: 'The handover of the Olympic Park sounds the starting pistol in the race to get the site and venues ready to host the two biggest sporting events on the planet.

'In just 200 days time, 200 countries - more than the membership of the United Nations - will be sending 15,000 athletes and 20,000 accredited media to London to create history.

'There is huge excitement ahead and we want the whole country to start planning their summer.'

Those venues and walkways in the 500-acre Olympic Park site, which today hosted the first Cabinet meeting of the year, which have been renamed are:

Riverbank Arena (formerly Hockey Centre), Copper Box (formerly Handball Arena) reflecting the copper cladding and Stratford Walk (formerly Aquatics Centre bridge), the 250m-long land bridge forming the main gateway.

Other named parts are London Way, the central spine of the Olympic Park and Orbit Circus, located around the Orbit, the 115m-high visitor attraction in the south of the park.

Dennis Hone, chief executive of the ODA, said the handover had taken place according to plan.

He said: 'We are in fine form ahead of the Games, having built the venues and main infrastructure on time and within budget.'

Organisers' remaining tasks include obtaining a million pieces of sport equipment, including 510 hurdles for athletics, 600 basketballs, 356 pairs of boxing gloves & 12 pairs of goalposts for handball.

They must also build 100,000 sq ft of retail space for the Games including a 40,000 sq ft London 2012 mega store, and build 11 sponsor showcase areas.

Future additions are more than 1,000 picnic benches, 362 toilet blocks, 165 concession stands, ticket box offices, information booths and programme sale points, plus 4,000 waste bins.

Daily Mail