The Olympic Board met today and discussed the initial findings of a KPMG review of temporary venues, commissioned by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) earlier this year.
The KPMG review was commissioned to look at four temporary venues to see if cost savings could be made by finding alternatives to using temporary venues.
The Olympic Board today endorsed the following recommendations:
• Equestrian events will remain at Greenwich Park;
• The temporary venue for Basketball will remain on the Olympic Park;
The KPMG report will be published but it will be necessary to ensure it does not contain commercially sensitive material.
The key findings relating to the basketball and equestrian/modern pentathlon venues are listed below.
Equestrian: all three Olympic equestrian events (dressage, cross-country and show jumping) are due to be held at Greenwich Park which will also host two disciplines of the Modern Pentathlon competition (running and riding) and the Paralympics equestrian event.
• None of the alternatives identified by LOCOG and considered by KPMG are in a location which is close enough to accommodate the Modern Pentathlon show jumping event which needs to be located close to the Olympic Park to allow the completion of all five events within one day;
• Any move away from Greenwich would therefore result in a doubling up of facilities with the need to build a separate Modern Pentathlon show-jumping facility close to the Olympic Park;
• In addition, all of the alternative venues would also require the funding of additional accommodation as they are not within IOC guidelines for travel time from the Olympic Village;
• Given these considerations, an alternative location for equestrian and modern pentathlon would not result in lower costs than Greenwich Park.
Basketball: currently due to take place in a 12,000 seat temporary arena in the Olympic Park. This venue is also due to host the Handball final and semi-finals, Wheelchair Rugby, Wheelchair Basketball and will be a holding area for athletes before the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
• The KPMG review showed that there are no significant savings to be made from moving the venue off the park to an existing permanent facility;
• This is due to the resultant costs of venue hire, operating costs and the loss of ticket revenue due to a reduction in capacity – not building a temporary venue would significantly reduce the number of spectators that would be able to watch the event;
• In addition, using an alternative existing venue for Basketball has significant technical and operational issues and knock-on effects for Handball, ceremonies and the Paralympic sports listed above.
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