POSTED: July 27th 2009
NewsUpdate
Seb Coe takes up the Javelin - three years out from London 2012
KEIR RADNEDGE / Sports Features Communications
LONDON: “The train now leaving Platform 13 . . .” was a daunting welcome for the superstitious today as the great and the good of London 2012 set out from St Pancras for the Olympic Park.
But nothing else occurred to undermine the confidence of Seb Coe, Tessa Jowell, Boris Johnson & Co as the first official outing of the Javelin Train marked three years to the day ahead of the summer Games’ Opening Ceremony.
World diving champion Tom Daley headed up a new generation of accompanying British Olympians just as organising leader Lord Coe represented the last.
The South-eastern’s company High Speed One took precisely 6min 50sec to cover the largely underground track to Stratford International between departure and arrival; in 2012 it should run up to 12 times an hour and at speeds of up to 140mph.
Coe had spent much of the weekend responding to interview requests in which he extolled preparatory work for the Games as being “on course and on budget.” Now his voice even piped out over the passenger address system before the train departed, telling everyone aboard to: “Enjoy the journey.”
That was a message delivered unanimously across political and preparatory lines. A question about the weather on a grey London morning prompted Coe into explaining how the stadium roof had greater coverage than the main stadia at any of the last three Olympics and Johnson into claiming that London “has precisely the same rainfall as Paris” – which London beat, of course, to win the 2012 bidding race.
Ministerial metaphor
Olympics Minister Jowell used the train journey as an opportunity to underline that 2012 would be “the public transport Games.”
Olympic and Paralympic athletes aboard the train and a subsequent tour of the Olympic Park were all impressed by the scale of the project and the amount of work already undertaken.
Daley, the 15-year-old schoolboy who won 10m diving gold at the world championships in Rome last week, was thrilled to be told this was the day on which work began on excavating the pool beneath the steel superstructure of the aquatic venue.
Paul Deighton, chief executive of LOCOG, sidestepped questions about the controversial choices of boxing and shooting venues by promising decisions “before the end of the year.” In any case, he added: “Whatever we decide, in terms of temporary or improving permanent venues, will not make a significant difference in terms of budget.”
James Cracknell, who won Olympic gold in rowing in 2000 and 2004, said he was thrilled by the pace of work and by the creative investment in issues such as legacy and sustainability.
He added: “Hopefully 2012 will act as a catalyst for all of British sport and for the public in general to become more active. It’s not only about young people, it’s about persuading other generations, for example, to take the stairs rather than the lift. It’s about changing people’s attitudes to the way they live their lives.”
And, of course, to take up the Javelin in 2012 for two weeks, starting July 27 . . .
Picture (above right): A reminder from the stadium workforce / ODA
Keywords · London 2012 · St Pancras · Olympic Park · Seb Coe · Tessa Jowell · Boris Johnson · Javelin Train · Stratford International · Tom Daley · Paul Deighton · LOCOG · James Cracknell
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