Baku 2015 COO Simon Clegg tells Around the Rings it’s “full steam ahead” for European Games preparations as venue construction goes right to the wire.
“We continue to race ahead at 100mph which has been necessary since day one because of the compressed nature of delivering this event in such a short timescale,” Clegg said of the 30-month lead-in to next summer’s inaugural Games.
With less than 200 days to the June 12 opening, the 55-year-old says there’s plenty on Baku’s to-do list.
“It’s full steam ahead. The workload and intensity of the workload is unbelievable but has to be sustained,” he told ATR in Baku, venue for last week’s European Olympic Committees general assembly.
Baku 2015 is moving from the planning to the operational phase.
Still to complete are a series of broadcast contracts; around 30 have been been announced 30 so far. Deals are expected to be announced with TV companies in North and South America, China and Australia among others.
The seventh and likely final top-tier sponsorship will be unveiled in December, he added.
But it’s the stadium and arena build, overlay and fit-out that is most pressing for Baku 2015 organisers.
The aquatics centre is ready but the temporary venues for beach soccer and volleyball and 3x3 basketball won’t be built until after the winter - and there is a huge amount of landscaping to do in that venue cluster. “I am very relaxed about that. I am still confident they will be handed over in sufficient time for us to undertake overlay and fitout,” said the former London 2012 director.
The athletics track has gone down at the 68,000-seat national stadium but Clegg says the venue isn't scheduled to be handed over to organisers until April. A domestic test event is planned just weeks before the European Games open.
He admits the venues are going right to the wire. “Yes, but they always were on a 30-month lead time,” Clegg said. “We are making good progress [across the project].
“But no-one should underestimate just how much work still has to be done to deliver an inaugural event where there is no file on the shelf which actually shows what they did last time."
While Baku 2015 has hired officials involved in the organisation of the London Olympics, Clegg said they have had to adapt their expectations to the EOC’s event that is of “a totally different size and scale”.