The wave-shaped Centre joins the Olympic Stadium, Velodrome, multi-use Handball Arena and the International Broadcast Centre (IBC). The 12,000-seat basketball arena is also ready for use in Olympic Park although the venue will be dismantled after the Games. According to Reuters, the final cost of the 17,500-capacity Aquatics Centre will be £232 million.
“With construction now complete on the Aquatics Centre, we are another step closer to the spectacular Olympic Park which will be host to world class sport in 2012,” said London 2012 chairman Lord Coe. Olympic Delivery Authority chairman John Armitt added: “Five years ago, in July 2006, we published a delivery timetable which set out the ambitious target to complete the main venues a year before the Games. Today, I am proud to say that we have delivered on that commitment.”
Meanwhile UK Sports Minister Hugh Robertson is “quietly confident” of a successful 2012 Olympics although he admitted London’s transport network will be a “challenge”. Robertson acknowledged there would be “lots of difficult moments” before the Games. However, speaking ahead of an event on Wednesday that will see International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge invite the world to London alongside Lord Coe and London Mayor Boris Johnson, Robertson said he was optimistic.
“I want to get the whole thing docked and delivered successfully before I start jumping up and down and making too much of a noise about it. But we are in a very good place, under budget and ahead of time,” he told The Guardian. “Operationally we're going to have lots of difficult moments over the next year. We're not home and dry by any means.” London’s transport network will be stretched during the Games, with more than one million extra Olympics-related journeys on the nine busiest days of the Games.
“It is a challenge,” said Robertson. “It was a challenge at the time of the bid and it remains a challenge now. London is a full and busy city. There are four things we're doing to try and mitigate this risk: investment in transport infrastructure, the Javelin train that will produce significant extra capacity, the Olympic Route Network and the traffic demand management system. But this is always going to be a challenge.”
