The Velodrome is now ready to be been handed over to the London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) to prepare for test events.
The Olympic Park ‘big build’ is now nearly 80% complete and the main venues on track to be completed this summer – a year before the Games.
ODA chairman John Armitt, said: 'The ‘big build’ of the main Olympic Park venues is on track to complete this summer as planned, ready for test events ahead of the Games. These new images show the transformation of a former industrial area into a great new park with world-class sports venues and a new network of roads, bridges and infrastructure built for the Games and legacy.'
Recent Olympic Park progress includes:
Olympic Stadium: Structurally complete with roof and all spectator seats installed. Lighting towers in place and lights tested. Ready to start laying turf for the field of play and the installation of the running track later this year.
Aquatics Centre: Permanent structure and wave-shaped roof in place, work underway on the Games time temporary seating stands, sweeping timber ceiling and bespoke concrete dive boards. The dive pool and two 50m pools have been tested and tiling is underway, moveable floors and separator booms are currently being installed to enable a range of community uses in legacy.
Velodrome: Construction complete and venue to be handed to LOCOG for overlay works.
Olympic Village: More than three-quarters of the residential plots are structurally complete with the structure of the Chobham Academy school also nearing completion. Work is well underway on the state-of-the-art polyclinic and creation of the Village wetlands and landscaping underway.
IBC/MPC: The structures of the International Broadcast Centre and Main Press Centre are complete with internal working continuing. A 2,500 square metre brown roof for wildlife is being created on the MPC and the Multi-storey Car Park is complete.
Handball: The structure of the permanent Handball Arena is complete and weather-tight, with the unique roof clad with 3,000sqm of copper and fitted with 88 natural light-pipes to illuminate the venue. The sprung wooden floor is now complete and all of the fixed multi-coloured seating is in place, with work about to start on the lower retractable seating tier.
Basketball: Two-thirds of the 12,000 seats are now in place at the Basketball Arena. The concrete base of the court has been poured and all external rooms are now in place and being fitted-out.
Parklands: Work is well underway to create around 250 acres of new parklands, on former industrial land, that will provide a colourful and festival atmosphere for the London 2012 Games and afterwards become the largest new urban park in the UK for over a century. More than 1500 trees and thousands of wetland plants have been planted and meadows sown around the Olympic Stadium. The large wetland bowl in the north of the park is close to completion with riverside spectator lawns, timber seating, frog ponds, loggeries, wildflower meadows, woodlands and footpaths in place.
The permanent new Primary Substation, Sewage Pumping Station and Energy Centre are operational, while more than half of the new bridges and underpasses on the site are structurally complete.
Latest employment figures show that as the ‘Big Build’ reaches its peak more than 12,000 people are working on the Olympic Park and Village.
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