The flatpack Olympics

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5 April 2012

Olympic chiefs are planning to beat rising costs by importing a temporary 2012 sports venue from Switzerland.

The Olympic Delivery Authority is in talks with a Swiss sports arena manufacturer to deliver a flatpack basketball venue for the London Games.

The ODA is under pressure to reduce the overall venues budget as the public contribution to the Olympic village and media centre soars.

Games chiefs reckon they can cut the £60 million budget for the basketball arena in the Olympic Park by importing a basic steel structure for around £12 million.

With a capacity of 12,000, the venue would host the preliminary stages of the basketball tournaments and may also host handball matches and serve as a holding venue for athletes during the opening ceremony.

After the Games it will be dismantled and sold off with the land made available to developers.

Games chiefs want to lease the venue so that they do not carry the risk of having to find a buyer for it in Britain or overseas after the event. Under a lease arrangement, the ODA would be able to free-up contingency funds allocated to the basketball venue. "We are on an international search to find someone to lease us a venue. It could be the most cost-effective solution and we're looking for a number of bidders," said an insider.

Games chiefs have come under pressure to scrap the basketball arena because, as a temporary venue, it leaves no legacy for the sport in the Olympic Park.

The venue's viability is being examined by accountancy firm KMPG, which is also considering whether to recommend that the equestrian events and shooting be moved out of Greenwich Park and Woolwich barracks respectively.

But Olympics chiefs insist that the alternatives of the O2 Arena and Wembley Arena would not be able to host the entire basketball event.

The O2 in nearby Greenwich will be at full capacity during the Olympics as host of the basketball finals and the gymnastics events.

It will later this month host the New Jersey Nets and Miami Heat from the American NBA league. Games chiefs say Wembley Arena would be too small.

They are also reluctant to lose the venue as planned because the basketball arena is expected to be a magnet for hundreds of thousands of fans in the first week of the Games at a time when the north of the Olympic Park will see little other action and risks becoming short on atmosphere.

Basketball is one of the hottest tickets at the Olympics and the China versus United States match was among the most oversubscribed at the Beijing Games.

Earlier this year the Games planners reshaped the map of the park in a cost-cutting exercise with basketball moving on to the site of the fencing, which will now take place at the ExCel centre.

As part of the same reshuffle the planned handball arena has been halved in capacity to 6,000 seats and will remain after the Games as a multi-sport venue the size of the Royal Festival Hall.

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