London Update -- IOC Chief Inspects London's Olympic Park

IOC President Jacques Rogge tours London 2012 construction sites with Sebastian Coe before leaving London. (LOCOG)IOC President Jacques Rogge left London Tuesday impressed with the pace of construction work for the 2012 Games after his first visit to the Olympic Park.

Rogge toured the park with LOCOG chair Sebastian Coe and the IOC’s Beijing Coordination Commission chair Hein Verbruggen to get an idea of the significant progress that is being made.

Around 3,500 workers are involved in building work on the site in Stratford, east London where the Aquatic Center and $1 billion Olympic Stadium are among the venues rising out of the ground.

Rogge’s one-hour visit also took in the Olympic Village site. Construction work is under way despite the Olympic Delivery Authority’s (ODA) problems in securing a tranche of private sector finance for the project.

Coe told ATR that Rogge had left with a good impression of London’s construction efforts. He said it was important to “visibly demonstrate the blend of sport and regeneration.”

“He made the point that it [the Olympic Park] was wonderfully compact,” Coe said.

Rogge returned to Lausanne, Switzerland after the tour, rounding out his involvement in the four-day Beijing debrief that is taking place at the Radisson Portman Hotel in London’s West End. On Monday, he launched the debrief and gave the 2008 Pierre de Coubertin Lecture to an Olympics audience.

London 2012 organizers will be hoping to leave senior IOC officials with a similar impression about their Olympic preparations at the end of this week following one of the regular project reviews.

Denis Oswald, chair of the IOC’s London watchdog, and Olympic Games Executive Director Gilbert Felli will scrutinize all functional areas of London’s preparations in meetings with LOCOG and the ODA on Friday.

Ahead of that are further Beijing debrief meetings that form part of the IOC’s Transfer of Knowledge program.

Among the workshops Tuesday was a ‘commercial’ session. Felli and the IOC’s marketing head Timo Lumme joined LOCOG’s commercial director Chris Townsend and a BOCOG spokesman on the panel.

Brand protection, hospitality, ticketing and licensing were the main themes discussed before an audience of around 50 delegates drawn from the next three Olympic hosts – Vancouver, London and Sochi – and technical experts from the 2016 candidate cities as well as other Olympic stakeholders.

Topics under scrutiny Wednesday include venue development and management, security, ceremonies, transport, finance and the torch relay.

Further sessions are planned Thursday before a press conference concludes the Beijing debrief at 1 p.m.

With reporting from Mark Bisson.

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