Stadium re-opens to mark Olympic anniversary

How better to mark the third – “leather” – anniversary of the London Olympics than to ask supporters to use up yet more shoe-leather by heading back to the stadium where it all happened? Clearly, there’s nothing better, because that’s what’s on offer on Friday, 24th July at the Olympic stadium to mark three years since July 2012.

The stadium will be formally re-opened – by Usain Bolt himself – as it hosts the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games: three days of action-packed Olympic and Paralympic athletics. Team GB’s Super Saturday stars Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis-Hill, world record holder and London Olympic 800m champion David Rudisha and more than a dozen world or Olympic champions will also be present. This will be the final time the original London 2012 track is used, before a new surface is laid for the London 2017 World Championships.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “The opening night of the Anniversary Games has attracted the strongest field ever assembled for a single night of athletics, providing Londoners with another ‘I was there’ moment.  The chance to see a living legend like Bolt is very rare and we are delighted to be able to welcome him to the reopening of the stadium where he so thrilled us all at the 2012 Games. It is a beginning of a new chapter for the Stadium and there will be many more amazing nights to come – it is wonderful that we are starting in such style.”

Boris Johnson chose not to mention government policy which has seen many sports facilities closed or reduced or priced out of the reach of London’s youngsters. Nor did he offer any comments on what a lost opportunity the Olympic village was: after the Games, it could have made a big impact on local housing waiting lists of around 100,000 – but instead it has been turned into yet another luxury flats area raising profits for overseas rich people.

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•To buy tickets to the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games, go to:
www.britishathletics.org.uk