London ahead of schedule for 2012 Olympic Games

London will be ready a year ahead of schedule to stage the 2012 Olympics, officials said on Tuesday, as Olympic greats prepared to give the capital’s stadiums a test run.

Former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe, who heads the Olympic organising committee, told reporters he was “really pleased” with how things were going.

“We have a stadium that is structurally pretty complete. The seats are going in and it will be finished by next year,” he said.

London Mayor Boris Johnson joked that the organisers were so far ahead of schedule that “the really smart thing for us to do as a nation would be to hold a snap Olympics which would catch our rivals napping.”

Previous games

Rather than the regular attempt to outdo the previous Games, the 2012 chiefs are set on building a lasting sporting legacy for Britain and regenerating one of the most deprived parts of the capital.

So while the venues may be less spectacular than Beijing 2008, and the fireworks fewer, London 2012 hopes to leave lasting urban infrastructure and housing rarely created by sports events.

“In the long term, what we want is to turn this area of east London into a place where people are going to want to come and live and make their careers in for generations,” Johnson said.

Organisers feel they are on track to produce a well-run Games on a strict budget, in keeping with the tough economic times.

So they are keen to show off how the project is running to schedule as they hit the two-year milestone.

US athletics hero Michael Johnson, who boasts four sprint gold medals from three Games, was later Tuesday to test out a temporary track in the 80,000-capacity Olympic Stadium.

Its distinctive white crossed-girder architecture is well on the way to completion and the seats are already being fitted.

British cyclist Chris Hoy, who won three golds in Beijing, was to become the first to test out the new Velopark, which he helped design.

“It’s only two years since the Beijing Olympics and it has passed in a flash so I’m sure the next two years are going to pass really quickly too,” he told the BBC.

“The Olympics are always there at the back of your mind. It’s the main reason why you train every day.”

Meanwhile John Amaechi, the British former NBA star with Orlando Magic and Utah Jazz, was to demonstrate some of his skills at the Basketball Arena, a temporary venue built with giant steel arches.

Construction is currently well within the event’s budget of 9.3 billion pounds (11 billion euros, 14.2 billion dollars).

The figure includes 1.2 billion pounds of a contingency fund, which has yet to be used.

Away from the Olympic Park on Tuesday, thousands of people were expected at London’s main Trafalgar Square for a day of 2012-themed interactive games and celebrity appearances, plus a “3D Future Zone” with six special pods allowing people to watch Olympic footage in high definition.

The square was the scene of wild celebrations in July 2005, when London edged out Paris for the right to host the Games.

London Mayor Johnson was using the two-year milestone to launch an appeal for 70,000 people to volunteer at the Games as everything from city guides to press officers.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It is the great people of this country, with their warm welcome and ‘can-do’ attitude, on whom the success of our Games will depend,” he said.