The 2012 London Olympics opens in two years' time but while the construction of stadiums is on track, the massive project faces a financial squeeze as Britain's austerity measures bite.
The world's finest athletes will do battle from July 27, 2012 in a once depressed area of east London which has been transformed by a vast programme of stadium building and urban regeneration.
The venues may be less spectacular than at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but the arrangers of the Games in London intend to leave a legacy of improved housing and urban infrastructure rarely created by a sports event.
Sebastian Coe, the former Olympic champion credited with helping to win the Games for London and very much their public face, is treating the daunting 24 months ahead in the same way as he approached his medal laden athletics career.
Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee (LOCOG), likened the project's progress to being at the 600 metre point of an 800 metres race, the event in which he held the world record for 16 years.
"We are just entering the back straight on the second lap and of course the killing zone in an 800 metres is between 500 and 600 metres. That is the platform that you build for what happens in the finishing straight.
"This is where a lot of what you do in the finishing straight and what it looks like when you get across the line is shaped. This year is a very important one for us," he told AFP in an interview.
The world's finest athletes will do battle from July 27, 2012 in a once depressed area of east London which has been transformed by a vast programme of stadium building and urban regeneration.
The venues may be less spectacular than at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but the arrangers of the Games in London intend to leave a legacy of improved housing and urban infrastructure rarely created by a sports event.
Sebastian Coe, the former Olympic champion credited with helping to win the Games for London and very much their public face, is treating the daunting 24 months ahead in the same way as he approached his medal laden athletics career.
Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee (LOCOG), likened the project's progress to being at the 600 metre point of an 800 metres race, the event in which he held the world record for 16 years.
"We are just entering the back straight on the second lap and of course the killing zone in an 800 metres is between 500 and 600 metres. That is the platform that you build for what happens in the finishing straight.
"This is where a lot of what you do in the finishing straight and what it looks like when you get across the line is shaped. This year is a very important one for us," he told AFP in an interview.
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