Sajeda Momin

London: Folding furniture which can be put together at home is extremely popular in the UK, but now it seems that Britain is going in for the ultimate in flatpack — a transportable Olympic stadium.

The organisers of the London Olympics are planning to pass on the bulk of the main stadium to the next host city when the games end here in September 2012.

London’s Olympic Delivery Authority began talks with their counterparts in Chicago — one of the early favourites to host the 2016 games — about the possibility of dismantling, boxing-up and shipping the main stadium across the Atlantic to be rebuilt.

According to The Guardian newspaper 55,000 seats from London’s 80,000-seat arena can be transported to Washington Park in the Illinois capital and used to enlarge a planned, 7,500-capacity community arena into Chicago’s main Olympic stadium.

The recycling deal is possible only because both cities have decided to build main stadiums with small numbers of permanent seats while erecting giant seatings scaffolds for the two weeks of competition.

“We have only held preliminary and very recent discussions with Chicago – at their instigation – covering some of the technical aspects of relocating so many seats, but it is obviously good news that there is already interest in reusing them,” said a spokesman for the ODA.

If the deal goes through it would be the first time in history that a stadium of this size has been moved.

The tactic has been billed as the first step in to making the Olympics akin to a travelling circus to keep costs down and allow poorer countries to play host like Baku in Azerbaijan, Rio de Janeiro and Prague who are also bidding for the 2016 games among others.

The proposal is also expected to raise tens of millions of pounds to help offset the rising costs of the London games which have quadrupled to £9.3 billion.

The recycled stadium may also tip the balance in favour of Chicago’s bid showing their commitment to environment and sustainability.

Source : DNA