London Latest - ExCeL Wraps Up Trio of 2012 Test Events

(ATR) London 2012 tells Around the Rings that ExCeL center will become almost a miniature version of Olympic Park come Games-time.

Matt Archibald, the boxing manager for LOCOG, spoke to ATR at the boxing test event held over the weekend at ExCeL alongside table tennis and fencing in the East London venue.

"This is the biggest-ever collection of Olympic events outside the Olympic Park, so it’s a huge operation," said Archibald.

"The challenge with that is that this will be a destination venue so we expect a lot people to turn up at ExCeL to go to sessions and also spend the day here."

Speaking about what will be on offer besides the sports for spectators, Archibald explained: "There will be spectator zones. People will come in, there’ll be have-a-go sessions, they can go get a hot dog, get some merchandise, and maybe see former Olympic champions. That kind of fun atmosphere is something that's being worked on."

Over the course of a week at the 2012 Olympics, the East London venue will host table tennis, boxing, fencing, judo, taekwondo, weightlifting and wrestling.

At almost the halfway point in the test events schedule, Archibald said that some areas have been tested enough.

"Once accreditation has been tested three or four times, they don’t need to be tested at Olympic standards at all the other 26 test events. It’d just cost a lot more money," he told ATR.

"Every pound we spend on test events we don’t get to spend at Games-time so we scale back operations – the seating here is 500 people, at Games-time it will be 10,000 and sold-out, so it’s things like that that we’re not testing but the key elements of the sport we are testing."

ExCeL London opened in 2000 and had a 50 percent expansion of its event space completed last year. From June 20 next year, the center will be handed over to LOCOG for tenancy during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

LOCOG venue manager for ExCeL Stephen Newport told ATR more about the specific logistics of how they would run such a busy venue at Games-time.

"We’ve done a lot of work with all the differentsports to manage the schedule so that we don’t have everyone arriving at the same time – we’ve staggered the program and work with the transport operators to make sure they can cope with bringing people to the venue and then taking them away," he said.

However, Newport admitted that one of the major challenges of the venue is to manage the flow of people within.

"With so many different arenas within one venue, it means you’ll have people arriving, people leaving, people perhaps moving from one session to another and people just generally moving around in the venue," he added.

"What we’regoing to be doing at Games-time is having a one-way flow through the venue, so everyone arrivesat the west end of the venue and everyone leaves from the east end of the venue, so people are all moving in one direction."

So far LOCOG has declared that there have been no majorissues with the set of test events inside ExCeL, and the respective international federations also expressed satisfaction with LOCOG'S progress.

The president of theInternational Boxing Association (AIBA) told ATRhe was confident that"everything will be perfect next summer."

"There are some very small things thatneed to be improved, but that is why it is important for our staff to be herethis week and work closely with LOCOG," said C.K. Wu.

"I am sure that the atmosphere will be fantastic nextsummer. We believe the crowds' cheering will even be louder than ever due tothe conditions of this venue. It is also a chance to be able to meet withpeople from other sports that will be hosted at the ExCeL."

Maxim Paramonov, secretary general of the InternationalFencing Federation, said that it was important to test the software thatwill be used at the venue at this time and added: "The ExCeL is a venuethat works well with fencing. It is a very modern facility and with the lookand feel of London 2012 and its 8000 seats it will be a great stage forfencing."

Judit Farago, chief executive and competitions executive director of the International Table Tennis Federation, said: "Weare delighted that as a result of the cooperation between LOCOG,the ETTA and ITTF, one of our biggest events is serving as a testevent for London 2012."

Reported in London by Christian Radnedge

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