LONDON (AP) ― With the opening ceremony just over 100 days away, Sebastian Coe is working on the final touches for the London Olympics he hopes will make the difference between “a good and a great games.”
With the new venues in place and the $14.7 billion project within budget, Coe and his London organizing committee are heading into the final stretch with plenty still to do but without any major crises to overcome.
Wednesday marks the 100-day countdown to the July 27 opening, the climax of a seven-year buildup that centered on the regeneration of a deprived industrial area in east London into the Olympic Park.
The torch for the London Olympics (Yonhap News)
For Coe, winner of two Olympic gold medals in the 1,500 meters, the latest symbolic milestone carries significance beyond just the numbers. The clock is truly ticking.
“One hundred days ― it sort of means something to people,” Coe said in an interview with the Associated Press, with the Olympic Stadium in clear view from his 23rd floor offices. “When you’re talking about seven years, six years, five years, four years, that’s one thing, but actually you’re talking about days.
“And we’re talking 12 Wednesdays or something. It’s really very close. The realist in me says, ‘Yes, it is 100 days to the opening ceremony,’ but actually for some ... it’s earlier.”
More than 10,500 athletes from 204 countries will start moving into the Olympic village two weeks before the opening ceremony, and thousands of media will begin working at the press and broadcast center.
Coe believes Olympic fever will take off in Britain once the Olympic flame arrives in Land’s End on the westernmost tip of England on May 19.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
