London 2012 Track - Gone???

For the world champs and olympics they always get the latest, most advanced, fastest tracks. They got rid of Beijings track as well. They will probably get a track similar to that, red with 9 lanes, using the same technology that rio and Beijing used.

The track was relaid at the start of the summer.

You can buy a piece of the original track:

https://www.london2012track.com

The stadium has retractable seating that covers the track most of the time:

http://www.constructionenquirer.com/wp-content/uploads/London_2012_Olympic_Stadium_West_Ham_football_mode.jpg

...and can be retracted for athletics:

http://www.constructionenquirer.com/wp-content/uploads/London_2012_Olympic_Stadium_West_Ham_athletics_mode.jpg

It's a great stadium for athletics, but awful for football spectators who are now the main tenants, as we all suspected would be the case. It was never designed to end up as it is now, but that's a long (though fascinating) story!

Distance is the bomb wrote:

For the world champs and olympics they always get the latest, most advanced, fastest tracks. They got rid of Beijings track as well. They will probably get a track similar to that, red with 9 lanes, using the same technology that rio and Beijing used.

We all know and agree with those words, accept Calculo, who insists all tracks today are no faster than those used 35 years ago!

Like the stadium built in Manchester for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the Olympic stadium had no viable future except as a football stadium (soccer, that is) so they end up virtually giving the stadiums to mediocre Premier League teams who get a nice new home at the taxpayer's expense!

Especially so in London where you already had the home of the England soccer team, Wembley, and the home of the England rugby team, Twickenham. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that once the games were over the stadium was going to be the whitest of white elephants!!

Man City is hardly mediocre

I have some pieces of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Track and infield ('d" zone)

mark b wrote:

Like the stadium built in Manchester for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the Olympic stadium had no viable future except as a football stadium (soccer, that is) so they end up virtually giving the stadiums to mediocre Premier League teams who get a nice new home at the taxpayer's expense!

Especially so in London where you already had the home of the England soccer team, Wembley, and the home of the England rugby team, Twickenham. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that once the games were over the stadium was going to be the whitest of white elephants!!

The stadium was designed and built so that after the 2012 games much of the seating would be removed, going from 80,000 to a 25,000 capacity bowl for athletics

The top section could be removed and installed somewhere else, i think talks were held about it going to Chicago for their Olympic bid. The 2012 stadium had no toilets, catering etc inside the stadium structure, it was all outside on the surrounding concourse.

Many of the 2012 venues were temporary structures (the basketball arena), or designed to be adapted to a smaller scale after the games (the pool). This was all done to keep costs down, and to avoid ending up with a load of sporting structures which wouldn't be used, as you see with Olympic parks all over the world. The thinking was that there's not the demand for watching athletics to justify a dedicated stadium of that size, but a 25,000 capacity stadium would be appropriate .

But, 18 months/two years before the games, even as the stadium was being built, that plan was abandoned. The 2012 bid promised an athletics legacy (the 25,000 stadium), but there was desire for something bigger.

The IOC looked dimly on the suggestion of a stadium without a track, putting pressure to keep an athletics facility.

The two main bids from potential tenants were from London Football teams: Tottenham wanted to knock the whole thing down and build a soccer-specific stadium (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/AEG_%26_Tottenham_Hotspur_Olympic_Stadium.jpg), West Ham said they'd keep the track under retractable seating.

West Ham's bid won (in a round about way) and they moved into the extensively/expensively adapted stadium in the summer in a highly controversial deal (http://www.footballgroundguide.com/images/west-ham-united-sign-at-london-stadium(1).jpg) to ENTIRELY predictable results:

I believe the London 2017 track is going to be blue.

They have money - but no class, history or meaningful record of achievement!