London marks 200 days for Olympics

London marked 200 days to go until the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in an upbeat mood on Monday, 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” to delivering a lasting legacy for the whole of Britain. The government announced on Monday 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 wave-like 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 sports 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.

Organisers pride themselves on transforming a once rundown area of scrapyards and workshops 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 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 also 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 here 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 stadiums has been worked out.

AFP