London 2012 Looks for Lessons in Daegu 2011

(ATR) If a terrible thunderstorm disrupts competition in Daegu, a handful of people won't mind. They're the observers from the London 2012 Olympics organizing committee.

"How that gets dealt with will be very useful to us," Terry Colton, LOCOG’s competition manager for athletics, tells Around the Rings.

About half a dozen LOCOG staff members from the areas of competition and venues are attending all or part of the ongoing IAAF World Championships. The London Marathon organization, which is helping with the Olympic marathon and race walks, also has a representative in Daegu.

"Our people will be observing the general setup and the procedures they use out there to see how it all works," Colton says. "We also want to have people there to see how the competition is presented in the stadium and how the public address system is used with the screens to keep the public informed of all the events that are going on."

Presentation is a "really important area for next year to try to make that the best that we can," he adds. With multiple disciplines going on at the same time, "it's sometimes quite tricky to make sure that the public and people don't miss anything special."

Colton did not make the trip to Daegu himself, but technical operations manager Keith Davies is attending the full nine days of competition in his stead.

Chris Cohen, athletics Paralympics manager for LOCOG, is working with the IAAF as an international technical official, putting him behind the scenes at no cost to London. "They'll have a long checklist of things that they'll be reporting on," Colton says.

Technical delegates from LOCOG will have discussions with their counterparts at the IAAF.

Stadium representatives will study the setup in Daegu and meet with the IAAF and Olympic Broadcasting Services to talk about camera positions. "It's important to get that fixed now so we're all in agreement how that's going to work," Colton says.

His team is also keen to see how Daegu handles the marathons and race walks, he adds. Like they will in London, both events are starting and finishing outside the stadium. Daegu is holding medal ceremonies outside the stadium as well. "We haven't decided yet," Colton says.

LOCOG director of sport Debbie Jevans says the fundamental principles are thesame for the IAAF Worlds and the Olympics as far as the delivery of the event. "We want our key staff that are on-site in 2012 to be experienced, not in the least so that the athletes are only worrying about their performance on the field of play, not having staff members in the wrong position or not doing the right thing."

With 11 months to go until London 2012, the Olympic Stadium at last has a track, with installation expected to be completed any day now.

"The key things for the moment for us are finishing off the stadium build, which is coming to completion now and we'll take over the stadium in the next few weeks," Colton says. "We've still got quite a bit of work to do from a LOCOG point of view to makeit completely ready for the Olympics."

LOCOG is also building the warm-up track and throwers field adjacent to the stadium. The site had to be cleared and made level. Colton says the plan is to install the warm-up track through September and into October.

Detailed elements such as catering and services must be worked out in time for the test event, the British University & Colleges Sport Championships in May 2012.

"Whether an athlete runs the 100m in 20 seconds or just over 9 seconds, what goes into getting the athletes there, what happens at the end is exactly the same," Jevans says. "We'll be testing our command and control from what happens at the stadium back to the main operations center. We'll be testing the drop-off points for the athletes. We'll be testing where the media sit. We'll be testing where the Olympic family sits and the whole logistics of the venue, so the fact that we've got some extraordinarily talented university athletes as opposed to the best athletes in the world does not make any different to our readiness."

Colton, a former elite runner who studied at Loughborough University alongside London 2012 chair Sebastian Coe, was director of the 9th IAAF World Indoor Athletics Championships in 2003 in Birmingham.

"I'm glad that we have a few more months yet," he says, "but it will pass very quickly."

Written and reported by Karen Rosen.

20 Years at #1: