Coe opens 2012 athletics track
Baku, October 5 (AZERTAC). More than 30 years after becoming an Olympic champion, Sebastian Coe became one of the first people to test the running track for the 2012 London Games.
The red track, made by Italian firm Mondo using a `Sport FLEX system`, was revealed on Monday, ten months before the Games begin. The same surface has been laid for the 80m sprint straight under one of the main stands and a 400m training track near the stadium will be laid shortly.
Coe, the 1,500m Olympic champion in 1980 and `84, ran 100 metres with schoolchildren before completing a lap with Hannah England, the reigning world 1,500m silver medallist.
The 55-year-old Coe, chairman of the London organising committee, said: "Seeing some of our top British athletes on the track with local school children really underlines the stadium`s potential for 2012 and beyond."
World record holder and Paralympic gold medallist Dan Greaves and British Long Jump record holder Chris Tomlinson were also present for the milestone.
They were joined by local school children from West Ham Church Primary School in Newham who will benefit from the Stadium`s legacy plans to be a venue for sport, athletics, community and cultural events.
Minister for Sport and the Olympics Hugh Robertson said: `This is another piece in the jigsaw for our Olympic Stadium. I am sure that we will see some world records tumble on this track next year and some inspiring performances from the world`s best athletes. What a great legacy it would be for the Stadium too if the IAAF select London as the host city for the 2017 World Athletics Championships.`
Earlier in the day the IAAF commission visited the Stadium visited the Stadium as part of the London bid to host the 2017 World Championships.
The 80,000-seat stadium will be reduced to a 60,000-capacity venue for football and athletics after the Games.
Stadium Facts & Figures:
Construction started in May 2008 and was completed in just under three years.
The total Stadium island site covers an area of 40 acres - it is compact and surrounded by water on three sides.
Five major new bridges will lead spectators into the site, provide spectacular views across the Park and London.
The shape of the Stadium is an ellipse with a long axis of 315m and a short axis of 256m. It stands at 60m in height above the field of play and the perimeter is 860m
33 buildings on the Olympic Stadium site had been demolished and over 800,000 tonnes of soil was taken away before construction could begin - enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall nine times over
The Stadium will contain around 10,000 tonnes of steel - it will be the lightest Olympic Stadium to date
The cable net roof provides the correct conditions for athletes on the field of play and covering two-thirds of spectators. The roof is covered by 112 panels of white material, totalling 25,000 m². The fabric was fitted by a team of 23 expert abseilers.
To ensure that the sporting action is illuminated and to meet high definition TV standards, the Stadium is lit by 532 individual floodlights housed in 14 towers. The top of the towers reach 70m above the field of play.
Each of the 14 lighting tower weighs 34 tonnes and are 28m high. They were lifted into place by a 650 tonne crane over a period of 14 days in March 2010.
There are around 700 rooms and spaces within the Stadium, including changing rooms and toilets. The turf for the field of play was grown in Scunthorpe and was laid over a period of three days in March 2011.
The black and white spectator seats were designed in the UK and manufactured in a factory in Luton. They were fitted between May and December 2010
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