Fun and games for Olympic Park visit

Shropshire Star reporter

takes a look around the Olympic Park site . . . just.

It didn't start well. Despite boasting an 80,000 seat athletics stadium, a 20,000 capacity hockey centre and an aquatics arena which will hold 17,500 - not to mention a host of other facilities to cater for dozens of sports - finding the home of the 2012 Olympics nestled in a corner of East London wasn't easy.

After a couple of wrong turns and a third trip past an increasingly familiar looking Porsche dealership we found the entrance to the park.

It already looks impressive, if a little like a massive building site, which, in fairness, it is.

The showpiece Olympic Stadium structure is already in place, the track is in the process of being laid and the seats will soon follow.

Although not as eye-catching as the new Wembley, the bowl already feels like a great stadium - and it's still nearly 18 months before anything will actually happen in it.

But getting to see it was no walk in the Olympic Park. Once on site it was apparent my name was not on the tour list.

And security was tight.

So tight in fact that I very nearly didn't get in.

My pleas were met with a blunt refusal from site staff so I played my trump card - a soft, cuddly Wenlock mascot kindly lent by Telford-based manufacturer Golden Bear - a tug on the heartstrings.

Wenlock's name wasn't on the list either.

Mercifully, a phone call to the head of security later, I was allowed to through to join the waiting party of my fellow Salopians, all on the trip courtesy of the Shropshire Playing Fields Association.

And let me tell you, the Olympic Park is going to be pretty spectacular.

Aside from the Olympic Stadium, which will host track and field during the games as well as the opening and closing ceremonies, the aquatics centre, basketball arena and handball arena are already well under way.

And the VeloPark which will host track cycling and the BMX events, will open today - the first venue inside the park to be declared officially ready.

Almost everywhere you turn in the park, which covers 2.5 square kilometres - or 357 football pitches - will be a piece of Shropshire. Aside from Golden Bear and the mascots, a look at the bridges connecting all the arenas will show the handiwork of Access Designs, a Telford firm which has provided steel fabrications for the walkways.

A glance at the Olympic Village showed a number of bathroom pods installed by Oswestry-based Elements Europe Ltd.

And the centrepiece itself, the Olympic Stadium, includes steelwork specialised bolts manufactured by Tension Control Bolts in Whitchurch.

Shropshire's name is certainly on these games - and what a games it should be.

The athletics track inside the stadium will be a bright orange - designed to ensure that years from now people will be able to instantly identify events from London - and there will be no shadows on the track, thanks to the high-energy floodlights.

The cycle track will be heated to 26 degrees centigrade to make it one of the fastest ever.

The spectacle of the park is, with the exception of the slightly-delayed aquatics arena, on schedule for completion this summer, enabling a series of test events to be held, ensuring everything meets the high standards expected.

And it is not all about the here and now. London is learning by example from other major sporting events which have left empty stadiums as "white elephants".

Legacy is one buzz word used a lot by our tour guide Julianne. Almost everything she says "is built with the future in mind".

Many of the facilities will remain but with reduced capacities, enabling them to be used by the community at a cost-management level. The athletes' village will become a mix of luxury and affordable flats, giving punters the chance to live in a room once, perhaps, inhabited by Usain Bolt.

The Jamaican sprint sensation will be one of the thousands of athletes descending on the UK when the Olympics start on July 27 next year.

Let the games begin.