The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has today announced that the first of the Olympic Stadium’s lighting towers have been successfully lifted into place, taking the flagship venue to its full height at 60 metres above the field of play.
A 650-tonne crane has been assembled in the middle of the Stadium to lift the 28m-high lighting towers on top of the inner ring of the cable-net roof, one of the toughest engineering challenges on the Stadium project to date.
The lighting towers, which will illuminate the action on the field of play and are necessary for high definition footage, are located high above the Stadium roof to ensure optimum lighting angles which avoid dazzling spectators, photographers and competitors.
ODA Chairman John Armitt said: 'The Olympic Stadium will be at the heart of the action in 2012 and its image will be beamed to billions of people across the world. The team has made impressive progress over the last year and we are on schedule to finish by the summer of 2011 to give a year for Test Events.
'The lifting of the lighting towers is a significant engineering and construction challenge and has taken a huge amount of work and planning, complicated by snow, wind and rain. Once all fourteen towers have been lifted, the Stadium will be at its full height and the venue will be another huge step closer to completion.'
Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the London 2012 Organising Committee, said: 'The Olympic Stadium will be the centrepiece of the London 2012 Games, and it is very exciting to see it taking shape so quickly. There will be some fantastic sporting action taking place there and the eyes of the world will be on us in the summer of 2012. We look forward to welcoming the world’s athletes to the Stadium in 2012.'
Rod Sheard, Senior Principal at Populous said: 'There are few moments on a project as important to a design team as when they reach the highest point on the structure, it is a point in time reflecting the huge effort so many people have contributed to make it happen. The placing of the first lighting tower on the Stadium is just such a moment.'
There will be a total of 14 lighting towers, each weighing 34 tonnes, designed with integrated walkways, access, power supplies and cabling and lighting.
The cable-net roof of the Olympic Stadium was lifted into place at the end of 2009 and will be covered with material once all the lighting towers are in place, providing the correct conditions for athletes on the field of play and covering two-thirds of spectators.
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