Designers hail 'the beginning of the end' of the construction phase as arena comes in on schedule and under budget
The designers of the Olympic Stadium in east London have hailed its completion as "the beginning of the end" for the construction phase of the 2012 Games.
As International Olympic Committee inspectors arrived in the city for a three-day visit to check on progress, organisers hoped the good news on the completion of the Stratford stadium would overshadow an ongoing row with the British Olympic Association over how any hypothetical profit would be distributed.
Lord Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, watched Frankie Fredericks, a four-time Olympic silver medallist, lay the last piece of turf on the infield.
The £486m stadium is the second major venue on the Olympic Park to be finished, after the Velodrome was unveiled earlier last month.
"I do not want anybody to run away with the idea that this stadium is ready to stage a track-and-field championship tomorrow," said Coe.
"But as a chairman of an organising committee to be able to tick off this venue is terrific. It is fantastic. I think it will be an intimate theatre for sport and it has fantastic legacy potential, too."
Work began on the 80,000-seat stadium in May 2008 and the Olympic Delivery Authority, which is responsible for spending £8.1bn of public money on the infrastructure to host the Games, said its completion was a "huge milestone".
"The Olympic Stadium has been finished on time and under budget," said ODA chairman John Armitt.
"To complete a complicated project such as this in less than three years is testament to the skill and professionalism of the UK construction industry." Rod Sheard, of stadium architects Populous, said he was looking forward to watching "this innovative design perform for the first time".
He added: "Its completion marks the beginning of the end of the construction phase of London's Olympic Games."