London Update -- IOC Begins Latest Inspection, Boxing Jabs at Venue Switch

The IOC Coordination Commission will be inspecting all of London's venues including the Olympic Stadium. (Getty Images)London welcomed the International Olympic Committee’s coordination commission Tuesday with news that all major projects are either on schedule or ahead of it, with work on the gigantic media center on the Hackney edge of Olympic Park beginning last week, a month ahead of schedule.

“It is our first post-Beijing co-comm,” a source at LOCOG told Around the Rings, “which means that the focus has moved from what we are planning to what we are delivering.”

This is the fourth commission visit since London’s was awarded the Games in Singapore in 2005, but it is the first since the global recession took hold. As Denis Oswald, the commission chairman, and his 18-strong IOC team toured the Olympic Park on an atypical sunny London spring morning, the British government published figures to show negative inflation in the U.K. for the first time in half a century.

London 2012 organizers will be emphasizing that with government guarantees and 75 percent of its sponsorship target already secured, the $14 billion project is on target.

Work on the International Broadcast Centre and Main Press Centre – the working base for 20,000 journalists during the Games - started last week, funded in the absence of loans from commercial bankers with $500 million from the Olympic contingency fund. Construction has now begun on all “big five” venues - the main stadium, the iconic aquatics center, Athletes’ Village, velodrome and media facilities.

The IOC team will also learn that Lend Lease, the Australian firm developing the Village, remains in talks with banks towards securing $400 million funding for that project.

“We are delivering in a very strong way - partly due to the strength of our team and partly due to the strength of the Olympic brand that is punching through in an area where most other things are not punching through,” Sebastian Coe, chairman of LOCOG, said. Of LOCOG’s 16 domestic sponsorship partners, half of them have signed agreements in the past year.

“We're pursuing the same vision we set out in Singapore,” said Coe. “We brought our business partners to the table very early and that's given us the clarity and certainty to move from planning to the operational phase – despite the economic downturn.”

Boxing Jabs at Venue Switch

The international boxing federation says it is against London’s scheme to move its 2012 tournament from the ExCel Centre, in Docklands, close to the Olympic Park, across London to Wembley.

Richard Baker, director of communications at the Amateur International Boxing Association, said last week that the traveling time between Stratford and northwest London was too great. A possible “satellite village” at Wembley is also unacceptable because it would remove the boxers from the essence of the Olympic experience.

A LOCOG spokesman said that Wembley Arena – which staged boxing events at AIBA doesn't want LOCOG to move boxing from the ExCel Centre to Wembley Arena. (Getty Images)the last London Olympics in 1948, when the neighboring stadium was the centerpiece of the Games – had not been available to the organizers when the 2012 bid was compiled. “We’ve looked at existing venues where some sports have a history of being staged, and Wembley Arena became available to us and is well-known for hosting boxing.”

Proposed Wembley Change under Scrutiny

A key part of the IOC Commission's visit will be to review venue changes introduced by LOCOG in the past six months for boxing, badminton and rhythmic gymnastics, as part of an effort to shave $29 million in costs by using Wembley Arena.

A 10-kilometer fun run was staged around the Olympic Park Sunday. LOCOG CEO Paul Deighton was among the 12,000 participants, many of whom were wowed by the rapid progress being made by the builders. “The Olympic Stadium has changed the east London skyline, the aquatics center roof is starting to take shape and the first residentialThe foundation for media facilities for London 2012 is being poured, a month ahead of schedule. It is one of five main venues currently under way. (Getty Images)blocks for the Olympic Village are out of the ground,” said John Armitt, chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority.

London 2012 will also stress how the Olympic project will be a significant stimulus to the British, and Europe’s, economy, generating nearly $10 billion of work in the next two years.

This IOC commission visit will review organizational aspects of the London Games, with talks on technology, ceremonies, transportation, marketing, education and culture, ticketing and arrangements for athletes, sponsors and media. Operational planning and long-term use of Olympic venues will also be explained to the IOC team during a day and a half of presentations held in the offices of Clifford Chance, the tower alongside LOCOG headquarters in Canary Wharf.

Most of the IOC commission is staying at the nearby Four Seasons Hotel, with some of them possibly being entertained by a visit to a Premiership soccer match on Wednesday night at Chelsea, the team supported by the LOCOG chairman.

Coe said that London 2012 is not worried about matching the impressive 9.75 out of 10 mark which Oswald awarded London after the last visit. “It was a great compliment but we want to be able to show good progress and show that we are navigating our way towards a great Games," said Coe.

Briefs…

… UK Athletics, Britain’s national governing body for track and field, will stage the 2011 European Athletics Congress. More than 200 delegates from the European Athletics Association’s 48 member federations are expected to attend the event in London in April 2011, when a major part of their activities will involve visits to Olympic Park.

… Simon Clegg, the former chief executive of the British Olympic Association, was confirmed Tuesday as CEO at Ipswich Town, the second tier English soccer club.

Written by Steven Downes

For general comments or questions, click here