London Update -- AIBA Knocks-out Boxing's Wembley Move; Queen Opens Olympic Sailing Center

Amateur boxing’s world governing body has delivered a knock-out blow to London organizers’ hopes of shifting its Olympic ring to Wembley Arena. One news agency reports that AIBA has written to LOCOG saying that the move is “unacceptable”.

AIBA is “concerned” over a possible three-hour journey time between the Olympic Village in Stratford and Wembley, even using priority Olympic lanes in north London’s notoriously traffic-clogged roads.

LOCOG lists the commute time from the athletes’ village to Wembley as between 35 and 45 minutes. “What they going to do? Fly the boxers by helicopter?” one London boxing promoter told ATR.

LOCOG originally planned to stage boxing at ExCel, in Docklands. But after a cost review last year, it was proposed to move boxing in order to stage badminton and rhythmic gymnastics at ExCel and save almost $30 million by scrapping a 6,000-seater temporary venue on the Greenwich peninsular.

“After trialing the journey themselves, our officials found that, depending on the time of day, it would take between one and three hours,” AIBA spokesman Richard Baker told the BBC.

“We want to protect boxers' Olympic experience. It becomes a major concern when some delegations, made up of coaches and officials, have to make several trips in one day with different fighters.”

The AIBA must approve any change in London’s Olympic plan for their sport. According to a LOCOG spokesperson, talks are continuing.

Development Agency Misses $100 million Land Payments?

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has denied reports that the London Development Agency (LDA), which bought large tracts of land used for the 2012 Olympic Park, failed to allow for nearly $100 million in payments to former landowners in the Stratford area.

The revelation, in The Observer, is a potential embarrassment for Johnson, whose election campaign in 2008 centered on charges of financial mismanagement at the LDA under rival Ken Livingstone.

The LDA has an annual budget of nearly $1 billion for regeneration and enterprise projects throughout Greater London. It has overall responsibility for the Olympic Park and other 2012 projects’ post-Games legacy under a committee chaired by Baroness Margaret Ford, who was appointed earlier this year.

More than 100 landowners sold to the LDA. Payments total $1.4 billion, but have been phased.

“The mayor made it clear on coming into office that he wanted to end mismanagement and deliver better value at the LDA,” a spokeswoman told ATR.

“An internal review at the LDA, which is ongoing, has identified some additional spending commitments and has adjusted budgets to accommodate it. No additional overall borrowing is needed and 2009 expenditure is accounted for.”

Stadium Academy Plan Still on Track

The mayor’s office was also busy refuting other reports that Baroness Ford has scrapped plans for London’s Olympic Stadium to house a high school after the Games.

At a well-attended public meeting last week in Walthamstow, one of the Olympic boroughs, Johnson endorsed the Chobham Academy. But in his speech, the mayor was light on details about where the school would be housed.

Calling it a “a world-class education campus to be built within the Olympic Village” for 1,800 pupils from the age of 3 to 19, Johnson said: “The Academy will ensure that the local community and future residents not only live in a brand new, thriving district, but have access to world-class education facilities for a range of needs, including nursery, primary and secondary schools.”

First Venue Completed for 2012

Queen Elizabeth last week officially opened the Portland National Sailing Academy, near Weymouth in Dorset, the venue for the 2012 Olympic sailing regatta.

The opening was attended by hundreds of flag-waving local schoolchildren, many of them in the water in canoes and sailing dinghies. Weymouth is the first venue to be completed for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were accompanied by Sebastian Coe, chairman of LOCOG. The opening went ahead despite the axing of a multi-million dollar project to improve the nearby seafront. The South West Regional Development Agency has pulled its $10 million contribution because of budget cuts.

Job Cuts Continue at BOA

Great Britain’s national Olympic committee stages its annual meeting Wednesday,when the location of its new headquarters building is expected to be announced.

The British Olympic Association, under chairman Colin Moynihan, is understood to still be under financial pressures, with a redundancy announced this week of Becki Middleton from the press office. It follows the departure of the likes of CEO Simon Clegg, finance director Howard Beeston and two other senior staff members since the Beijing Olympics.

“We have a new management team in place and a new structure has been developed,” Miriam Wilkens, the BOA’s head of media, told ATR.

Briefs…

… Calais is spending $25 million to attract overseas Olympic and Paralympic teams to use the French region as a training camp venue in 2012. The region offers a world-class velodrome, gymnasia and wrestling halls. Calais is one hour from London by the Eurostar Channel Tunnel express trains.

“We are so close that we consider ourselves the English region that the British might forget about,” said Dominique Dupilet, the Calais council leader.

… British Handball has announced the appointment of the Serbian coach, Dragan Djukic, to oversee the senior national squads up to 2012. Britain has never qualified for the Olympic handball tournament.

… The $1.5 billion Olympic Park project has seen just 115 locals taken off the unemployment register, according to official figures from the Olympic Delivery Authority.

Of the 4,101 workers at the Olympic Park, around 20 percent are from the five local boroughs, prompting one Hackney MP, Diane Abbott, to characterize her constituents as being “like children pressing their noses against a window”.

… Advertising guru Andrew Oldham, formerly working for CBS Outdoor, has been appointed as a consultant by LOCOG. He will be responsible for advising on the allocation of outdoor advertising space for the official Olympic advertisers.

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