Notes from a sporting week – 12/11/07

London 2012 taking shape:

The planning for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games stepped up a pace this week with the unveiling of the main stadium that will be at the very heart of the games come 2012. It is quite a low-key design, vastly different to the original one from the bid document. During the games it will have an 80,000-seat capacity, which will be reduced down to a 25,000 arena with a permanent running track around it.

It is exactly was promised in the bid document and leaves a legacy of the athletics facility that, along with the warm-up facilities next door, will be used by the wider community post-games. To that end though, it is a little strange that no design has been revealed for what the stadium will look like once the capacity been reduced.

A lower tier of 25,000 will be sunk into the ground to create a bowl-like effect, with 55,000 seats making the top tier, which will be removed once the Olympic and Paralympic Games are finished. The permanent roof will cover two-thirds of the spectators (this is a sports event being hosted in the UK, so let’s not get our hopes too high for two weeks of blinding sunshine) with the rest protected by a fabric curtain that will wrap around the stadium. Food and merchandising will be based in pods around the outside of the arena.

In pure aesthetic terms it is something of an anticlimax and nothing to compare to the last two stadiums in Athens and Sydney, respectively. If anything it is slightly similar to the Melbourne Cricket Ground when it was used for the 2006 Commonwealth Games. But in truth so long as it looks good on television, as most have done when lit up at night, and that access and entry to and from are relatively smooth, then they are the main considerations ticked off.

Of course what to do with your Olympic Stadium once its primary use is over is a situation that has blighted host cities for a number of years. Of the recent few only Sydney is put to any regular use, having hosted the 2003 Rugby World Cup final and main matches, Australia internationals in rugby union and league, domestic rugby league and even the odd cricket and Australian Rules Football match. This was after it was reduced from 110,000 for the games to 80,000 with the removal of the running track and the stands brought closer to the field of play.

For the other cities it makes grim reading. Seoul’s is barely used, having been usurped for football internationals in 2002 by the World Cup Stadium on the other side of town. Espanyol, play their Liga matches at Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium, but barely sell except for the visits of Barcelona and Real Madrid. The Atlanta Stadium was so important to the Atlanta Braves that the baseball diamond was already incorporated into the design, ready for it’s reconfiguration once the 1996 Games were out of the way. Then there was the Athens stadium which went through the hullabaloo of putting a roof on, which if it hadn’t would have looked like the grotty, 22 year-old concrete edifice that it was beneath and showed the world how few lessons had been learned when making a pig’s ear of hosting the Champion’s League final this year.

There should also still be question marks hanging over the Beijing Stadium. Whilst the birdcage design may look fetching and quite unique, what exactly China is going to do with it is anyone’s guess. Sure they will probably fill it when the China Games are happening, but the national football team are hardly a big draw and the domestic league is pitifully weak. Furthermore with questions still lingering about the air quality, there is little draw for any major athletic meetings to go there, leaving the odd money-spinning pre-season tour by a western European football team as one of the few possible things that may push a crowd to near capacity.

However, the good people at London 2012 shouldn’t be patting themselves on the back just yet. Sure they have a post-games idea, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there won’t be problems ahead. Along with the permanent running track London 2012 are looking for an anchor tenant, either a football or rugby club. Who this will be should be at the forefront of their thinking from now on.

The two major football clubs in the area, West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur have both been ruled out as the capacity will be too small and neither wants a permanent running track. Leyton Orient feel the capacity is too big and are looking at plans to redevelop their Brisbane Road ground. After that there remain few obvious candidates. Rugby clubs, Wasps, Saracens, Harlequins (league and union) and London Irish all have set up base in other parts of the capital and are starting to reap the benefits. Maybe come 2012 Super League may be feeling confident enough to open a second London club the opposite side of town from Harlequins? Or maybe London 2012 has absolutely no idea who will take on the stadium and it is for precisely that reason that the post-games plans haven’t been released, as come the crunch, they may have to undergo a little more tinkering than those in the know are ready to let on about at this precise moment.

Goodbye to league's Lions:

There were bittersweet tears on Saturday night at Wigan’s JJB Stadium when they signed off till 2012 with a 28-22 win to seal a 3-0 series win over New Zealand. From now on the team will be divided into the four home unions, with the Lions only coming together for tours to Australia and New Zealand, the next scheduled for 2012.

The main drive behind the division to the four nations is the desire to expand the sport internationally, with the powers that be suddenly realising that any sport worth its salt has to have an international profile. It is something that is clearly not the case at the moment with Great Britain and New Zealand joined at the top table by Australia, with Papua New Guinea just below them and the likes of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Lebanon and France even further down.

With four teams coming out of the British Isles and an improving France, there is the hope that in a few years time there might be enough competition to start a five nations tournament. Of course what that needs if for the authorities in those countries to put in a massive amount of time and effort to make the game credible there. Wales has made some progress and there has often been talk of a Welsh franchise entering Super League, but Scotland and Ireland are some way off.

The biggest worry will be that England taking over from Great Britain will simply be a case of changing the name. There will be many Great Britain players who in the past would have opted to play for one of the Celtic countries through parentage, such as the Oldham-born Iestyn Harris, who will instead opt for England as it will give them a higher profile and provide more competitive matches.

Maybe the division into England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales has come 12 years too late. Had it happened following the 1995 World Cup then the sport would be reaping the benefits today. At the time they would have been coming off a highly successful world cup for England and Wales who reached the final and semi-finals, whilst Ireland and Scotland both had strong showings. As things turned out it didn’t and Welsh players who had transferred from union, but were making their mark on league, such as Scott Gibbs, Allan Bentley, Scott Quinell and Dai Young, were tempted back to the newly professional union game with the knowledge that they would be able to play regularly for Wales.

It is a bold step by the Rugby Football League and one that needs to be backed up with development programmes and financial commitment to spreading the game into Ireland, Scotland and Wales. If it doesn’t, then all the League will have done is change the name of the team and undo all the hard work that has gone into growing the sport in Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
JI 12/11/07