LONDON | 2012 Olympics Park Development News

[PortoNuts]

London 2012 Olympics: medal hopefuls in six sports given financial boost

Six sports have been rewarded with more Lottery cash to prepare for the 2012 Olympics after they were identified by UK Sport as offering extra medal opportunities. The biggest winner is hockey, which has been given an extra £1.13 million over the 18 months to allow more players from both the men’s and women’s squads to train full time and improve their technical skills.



The England women’s team pulled off a bronze medal hat-trick at the World Cup, Champions Trophy and Commonwealth Games while the men won the Champions Trophy silver and took fourth place at the World Cup — their best finish on foreign soil.

Liz Nicholl, the UK Sport chief executive, said: “Up until now, our evaluation has been that there was potential for one medal from either the men or the women but now we are much more reassured that there is potential for two medals in 2012, which is really exciting.”

The second biggest winner is gymnastics, which receives an extra £600,000 after clinching five European and three world medals, while boxing, canoeing, taekwondo and rowing have all been given additional funds after exceeding expectations this year.

The only Olympic sport to suffer a cut in funding is badminton, which faces a reduction of £540,000 after UK Sport revised downwards the number of likely qualifiers for the 2012 Games. Overall, Britain won 40 medals at world and European level in Olympic disciplines this year, and a further 84 medals in Paralympic events.

UK Sport said the country was further ahead in Olympic and Paralympic sport than it had ever been at the same stage of an Olympic cycle, raising hopes of a substantial medal haul in 2012. The agency’s official target is fourth place at the Olympics and second at the Paralympics, with more medals being won in more sports at both Games.

Britain’s winter sports have also enjoyed a big rise in Lottery allocations, with an extra £4.8 million being made available to prepare for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The increase reflects UK Sport’s new policy of funding winter disciplines according to the same criteria as summer sports.

But the money will be shared by only four sports that have been identified as genuine medal chances — skeleton, curling, short-track speeding skating and women’s bobsleigh. Ice dance, skiing and snowboarding, all of which received Lottery support before this year’s Vancouver Games, will no longer be funded.

Meanwhile, on the day the £31 million state-of-the art Olympic white-water centre was opened by HRH The Princess Royal, Canoe GB insisted that allowing overseas paddlers open access would not dilute the home country’s hopes of a record medal haul.

The centre in Broxbourne, Herts, is soon to become the home of GB Canoeing, but will be run by the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, who will open it to the public in April and believe they will break even within two years.

John Anderson, performance director of GB canoeing, admitted that international teams will be given greater access than ever before, but that being based at the centre and using it six days week will enable them to maintain the success of 2010.

“The relationship we have Lee Valley Authority is absolutely first class,” insisted Anderson. “They’ve actually been helping our athletes with the move.

“The course is going to be open in April to the public and to the other nations. We are good enough in GB to make this course home and to take advantage from making it home.

“The fact the other nations are coming here, that’s fine. I don’t have any problem with that at all. I do believe in fair play. I absolutely want our athletes to be successful; any concept of locking the place up and not letting the rest of the world is just not what the Olympic spirit is about and I really mean that.

“Other nations will come on one week and two week training camps. We did exactly the same in Beijing, with a total of 40 days access with the rest of the world.

“With this course the nations are going to have more access than they have had in the last four Olympic Games. But crucially we are going to be based here permanently. So they may come, but they’ll go back. We won’t.”

“We medalled in Sydney, Athens and Beijing and we have had a good 2010 season, with our athletes winning five medals in Olympic events and so with 20 months to go and keeping our feet flat on the ground, I think we are in really good shape.”

Dave Florence, a silver medalist in the men’s slalom C-1 in Beijing gave his endorsement of the course when he said: “It’s fast but it is fantastic.”

And Richard Hounslow, who won bronze in the men’s canoe doubles at the World Canoe Slalom Championships in Slovenia in September with Florence, added: “I’ve only paddled it twice but I would say it’s my favourite course in the world.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oth...ial-boost.html

[WooWoo]

cannot wait for July 2012!

[jerseyboi]

[jerseyboi]

587 Days to go to London 2012

[stevensp]

the snowy pictures are really cool
im sure all will be ready in time in london....

587..
go go!

[PortoNuts]

Now Qataris launch bid to buy half of Olympic village flats

The Qatari investment firm behind the redevelopment of Chelsea barracks has launched a bid to buy a £500million share of the Olympic village, it was announced today.


“Trophy assets”: how the Olympic village will look. Qatari Diar has offered £500m

Qatari Diar, the property wing of the emirate's sovereign wealth fund, has submitted a joint bid with British property developer Delancey to purchase the vast development of flats in Stratford, which will provide accommodation for Olympic athletes before it is converted after the Games.

If the Qatari bid wins, it will be the latest in a series of huge investments in "trophy assets" in London by the Arab state that includes Harrods, Renzo Piano's "Shard of Glass", One Hyde Park and the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. Qatari Diar submitted a new master-plan for its £3billion redevelopment of the Chelsea Barracks this month after the original scheme collapsed following the intervention of Prince Charles.

A total of nine bidders have come forward for the Olympic village including Sir Robert McAlpine - builder of the Olympic stadium - and some of the biggest British names in property development. They responded to a tender in October from the Olympic Delivery Authority offering for sale about half of the 2,800 homes plus an adjacent plot of land with potential for up to 2,500 more homes.

The other half of the homes has already been sold for social housing in a £270million deal with Triathlon Homes. The existing package is thought to be worth in excess of £500million with receipts to be returned to the taxpayer.

The ODA said it was delighted with the response which it said vindicated its decision to delay the sale until the property market came out of its slump. Further evidence of confidence in the Olympic Park area was provided this month when Dutch and Canadian pension funds paid £870million for Westfield's soon-to-be-complete Stratford City shopping centre.

ODA chief executive David Higgins said: "The quality of this shortlist is a vote of confidence in the quality of the Olympic village. Securing a shortlist with many of the leading property investors and managers both in the UK and around the world takes us an important step towards ensuring the village becomes one of the strongest legacies from the Games."

The full list is Delancey & Qatari Diar; Dorrington & Pinnacle Capital; Galliard Homes; Grainger plc & Moorfield Group; Hutchison Whampoa Limited; Le Frak Organization; Aviva plc & JP Morgan; London & Stamford Property plc; David Wilson & Sir Robert McAlpine; Wellcome Trust; and The William Pears Group & Urban Splash.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...llage-flats.do

[ajaaronjoe]

image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr

[zwash721]

im Zephaniah no Nic or wilgles. I deliver this message for him. Don't mess with the some of the most powerful people on the internet. Have fun.

[DoverBeach]

Will there be any safe space for keeping bikes? As I read in the news, they want the fans going by bike to the games.

[jerseyboi]

image hosted on flickr

lights on


therealmarky's on flicker

[Turbosnail]

Was just on the news that David and Boris attended this light turning on ceremony.

[jerseyboi]

[PortoNuts]

BBC London News: Stadium Lights

[ajaaronjoe]

Thanks for sharing this video clip mate, fantastic lights, but the stadium doesn't have a roof?

How would they prevent london rain?

[PortoNuts]

The stadium does have a roof, it simply doesn't cover the whole seating. That's the price you pay for a seat on the first row.

[scalatrava89]

Good page in the Daly Mail today (Mail Online). Shows the very impressive swimming pool diving boards.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/oly...c-Village.html

[jerseyboi]

[sattar]

587 Days to go to London 2012

Dayes will become close to us when we aware which Olympic begin

[WooWoo]

cannot wait for 2012

but i'm a big gutted learning that the original external wrap isn't going ahead. That was my favourite part of the design

[PortoNuts]

Sportsmail's Magnificent 7 access all areas at the 2012 Olympic Village: our golden hopefuls for in seventh heaven at the venue of their dreams

-- Link to Daily Mail article --

Like any sightseer, he had his camera out. A Colgate smile lit up his face. 'Nice,' he purred slowly. 'It's pretty cool.' That was Tom Daley's reaction as he entered the aquatics centre being fashioned for the Games of the XXX Olympiad. No matter that the interior was a maze of scaffolding underneath the iconic shark-style roof. There, simply, were the diving boards he wants to own.



Daley, a favourite for gold in 2012, was ushered up the wooden ladders and through the yellow doors to pose for my colleague Andy Hooper's wonderful photograph (below). A headstand for the artist's lens? 'Don't give him ideas,' said Daley with mock concern, posing instead on his feet with his arms outstretched. A crane was poised to his right, just where the water of the diving pool will wait for him, mirror-like, at his moment of truth.

This was the highlight of our privileged peak behind the diggers and cement-mixers at the Olympic site in East London. We were there to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Magnificent 7, the talented group of young athletes whose progress this newspaper is following up to 2012, and to bring a sense of the smell and feel of it all to our readers.

'A lot is made of the outside of this building,' said Daley, a 16-year-old Plymouth A-Level student and recently-crowned double Commonwealth champion, of the edifice designed by British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, 'but the whole centre is amazing.'



He was thinking mostly of the boards themselves. They are unlike anything anyone has seen before: modern sculpture produced, so I am reliably informed, by high-tech self-compacting concrete poured into glass-fibre reinforced moulds with a core of steel bars. 'They look like waves coming out of the floor,' added Daley. 'Seeing this today gives me the motivation to do the work I need to come back here and get a medal. But diving is an on-the-day sport.'

This was a chilly December morning but still the ripples of anticipation were palpable even to us non-competitors as we snaked our way by bus around a plot now employing its peak manpower of 1,000 workers. Much is already built - most of the grey and white seats, for example, are fitted inside the Olympic Stadium - but a great deal remains to be done. That is a reflection of the size of the project rather than a hint that any construction deadline will be missed.

A long dive away from Daley's balanced pose, we inspected the blue and white tiling in the swimming pool. We stood at the bottom of it, three metres down. Above us the ceiling timber of hardwood slats were barrel-gun straight to direct the backstrokers. 'Brilliant,' said Louise Watkin, the 18-year-old Paralympic silver medallist as she inspected the centre.

'I remember when London was awarded the Games in 2005 and I thought we don't need to worry about that for a while. It feels like yesterday. Now I know the Games will be here faster than we realise.' And when they are over, the pools will regularly be divided into smaller areas by booms that rise from the floor. The depth, too, can be altered.



Over at the velodrome, the steep track of Siberian pine - 43 degrees at the ends, reducing to 12deg at the sides - was hidden under wraps. The smell of the blue paint on the infield hung in the air. The challenge of designing the fastest track drew Ron Webb, an ace Australian designer, out of retirement. Geometry that allows maximum speed to be taken out of the turns and a high internal temperature are crucial. So is workmanship to the nearest two millimetres.

Shanaze Reade, the BMX world champion and a hot tip for gold in London, spent her last visit here posing on the undulating roof for one of our previous photo-shoots. 'The velodrome has come on so much since then and it was only six months back,' said the 22-year-old from Crewe. 'I want to compete on the track at London, as well as the BMX. The track comes first in the timetable, which is great because it gives me a good run through to the BMX event a week and a half later.



'If I can go to London and create a bit of history by winning two golds then that will be amazing. If I get a silver or a bronze and I've given my best then that's all I can do.'

The stadium is, of course, the heart of the whole carnival. It's an understated design and you feel it needs the participants to paint their magic on its canvas to bring it to life. One hoping to be there is Emily Pidgeon, a 21-year-old Loughborough University psychology student, who is splitting the final year of her degree course in two to help towards selection at 5,000 metres. She missed out on qualification for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October by seven seconds. Her Lottery funding was stopped the following month.



Despite it all, she is confident. 'It's going well with my new coach Andy Hobdell and I've set PBs throughout the year,' said the former European junior champion. 'I am injury-free and I am on target to make it.'

On to the media centre. It's still a shell of a building but will be buzzing with 20,000 journalists when the Games arrive. Around a table, I conducted the first interview there, with Louis Smith, Olympic bronze medal gymnast from the Beijing Olympics. He was moments away from catching a flight to Los Angeles for an adidas shoot alongside David Beckham. It was a heady assignment for a burgeoning 21-year-old who, it is said, not so long ago cast his eyes to his feet rather than meet your eyes in conversation.

Away from London, the two other members of our Magnificent Seven toiled at their dream. British Open judo champion Gemma Howell was winning a World Cup silver medal in Korea. Finn sailor Giles Scott was adding to his host of sailing medals in Australia at the end of a wonderful, breakthrough year.

What an experience the grand tour of Stratford was. And at the end of it Lord Coe, chairman of the Organising Committee, spoke of what awaits our starlets. 'In a couple of weeks, the Games will be next year and then it will be writ large,' he said. 'Before they know it, it will be January 2012 and then they will think in a completely different way. It will be an Olympic year. We are getting closer and closer.'