Inside the Olympic Park

7 August
As I'm sure most people know, Greenwich will be hosting a number of events during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games including the equestrian, shooting and the basketball finals. As part of Greenwich's preparations for the Games some of us visited the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London, this week to have a look at how things are shaping up. With less than two years to go we were expecting to get a real idea of how the Park is going to look in 2012 and we absolutely weren't disappointed. Nearly all of the main structures are, externally at least, nearing completion and looking great, particularly the beautiful Aquatic Centre and the gorgeously elliptical Velodrome which, idiotically, I failed to photograph. Here's a couple of pictures of the main stadium instead, one of which was taken from inside the arena.Just behind where this shot was taken from were teeny workmen putting in some of the 80, 000 seats. I bet that's a laugh: "Which one's this, Terry?", "Number 6,567, I think", "Brilliant. Only 73,433 to go"  It is a seriously impressive site, though,  and apparently well on course to be finished and ready for test events by the summer of 2011. If you'd like to take a look for yourself there are still places to be had on the free bus tours of the Park, although there's a bit of a waiting list. If you'd like to go, call the booking line on 0300 2012 001.

---