Ticket demand high as 'Killing Zone' begins

OLYMPIC GAMES:SEBASTIAN COE yesterday spoke of his pride that sport has brought the Olympic dream to London ahead of today's landmark of one year to the start of the 2012 Games. The London 2012 chairman said preparations were "where we want them to be" but warned that much work still needed to be done.

“It’s a pretty big moment for us,” he said. “The Olympic Park venues are in large part built, and though a mountain of work is still needed to prepare them we have an extraordinary platform to build on.

“I feel pride that it’s ‘sport wot done it’. I cannot look at the Olympic Park without taking great pride that all us in sport did this.”

Coe said there was “tangible evidence” the public were already keenly anticipating the Games.

“There were 23 million ticket applications by two million people, that’s an extraordinary volume, a world record-breaking demand for any sporting event on the planet.

“There have been 250,000 people applying for the 70,000 volunteer places. There is a level of excitement and engagement in every one of our torch relay stop-overs.”

The chairman of Games organisers LOCOG believes London 2012 has entered an organisational phase he referred to as the “Killing Zone” – a crucial stretch that will determine whether the Games meet the Olympic gold standard in one year’s time or fall back among the also-rans.

The double 1,500m Olympic gold medallist from 1980 and ’84 said the next 12 months were of critical importance: “In terms of an 800 (metre race) . . . I think this is between 500 and 600 metres, the second lap and in 800 metre running that’s known as the ‘Killing Zone’.

“And it’s how you come out of that 100 metres that often determines the order that you finish in.”

Coe was prepared for all eventualities but confident London would rise to the challenge. He said there was nothing that really kept him awake at night, and he was confident London had the best people an organising committee has ever assembled.

“I guess what I would say at this moment is that what we have within our control is under control.

“But I am not that cavalier that I don’t recognise there are things that will come at us in the last year that you don’t always foresee.”

Transport and security are two of the key issues but the immediate focus is on the “London Prepares” test events that will take place across the capital in the coming months.

Some have already happened, others are in the final stages of preparation, but all are vital to ironing out any problems.

“Testing is such a crucial part of the process. Nobody wants to go to an Olympic final and risk being thrown something you haven’t been confronted with 200 times before on the training track,” said Coe.

“The challenges going forward are making sure we learn as much as we possibly can from the testing . . . that our teams are all pointing in the right direction and all focusing absolutely on the things that need focusing on and over the coming year we know what those are.”

As an athlete, Coe was famed for his smooth acceleration and late bursts from behind. There is no question of London being off the pace either.

All but one of the Olympic Park venues have been completed and handed over with more than a year to go and there is talk of the Games coming in under an albeit repeatedly expanded budget.

“I broke 11 world records and five of them were running from the front. I think it’s a pretty reasonable tactic. But you have to be adaptable,” said Coe.

Transport will be one of the big pieces of the project that have to be got right.

“You can’t by conscience bring them (the athletes) to a city where transport unravels within 10 minutes of the opening ceremony, or bring them to venues that don’t work or a village that isn’t creating that ambience or environment that they need to compete at the highest level,” he said.

For those who complained about the “Olympic Lanes” and transport making it harder to get around town next year, Coe had a simple answer.

“This is not going to be business as usual,” he said. “It is going to be business unusual.”

Asked when he would be able to sit back, relax and just enjoy the Games, Coe replied: “Probably some time in 2013.”

- Over 200 buildings had to be demolished at the 2.5sqkm Olympic Park.

- Organisers received more than one million ticket requests for the men’s 100 metres final, which takes place at the Olympic Stadium on August 5th.

- 2,000 newts will be relocated from the Olympic Park to the Waterworks Nature Reserve.

- 14 lighting towers are needed to illuminate the Olympic Stadium because the 2012 Games will be the first to use HD TV freeze-frame coverage.

- Around 700,000 successfully applied in the first round of ticket sales, meaning 1.2 million missed out on initial preferences.

- The Olympic Village will be the most spacious in Olympic history, with 17,320 beds and an average 16sqm floor space per athlete.

- The 2012 Summer Olympic torch relay will last 70 days, visit six islands and will see around 8,000 people carry the torch 300m each. It will start in Land’s End, Cornwall, on May 19th.

- The Olympic hockey pitches will be blue – the first time an Olympic or world event has differed from the traditional green-coloured synthetic turf – to improve viewing for players, fans and officials.

- The Olympic mascot, Wenlock, is named after Much Wenlock in Shropshire, where the Wenlock Olympian Society held its first Olympian Games in 1850.

- More than 800,000 tonnes of soil had to be taken away before construction of the Olympic Stadium could begin.

- The Olympic Village will be converted into as many as 3,600 apartments after the Games.

- A tri-generation plant will supply electricity, heat and chilled water to the Olympic Park using technology which produces 33 per cent lower CO2 emissions than from the electricity grid.

- The International Broadcast Centre is the size of six football pitches and will be the base for around 20,000 broadcasters, photographers and journalists.