Practice for the London 2012 Olympics

As a result of all the problems and complications that the Commonwealth Games presented earlier this month, the organizers of the 2012 London Olympic Games have pledged that they will not make the same mistake, insisting that practice makes perfect.

The Commonwealth Games faced a number of organizational issues but the organizers for the London Olympics will be implementing test events for each of the Olympic sports in order to help highlight any potential problems that could arise.

“It’s very significant. I think that the test events are a crucial milestone for us,” said David Luckes, organizing committee head of competition. “But what we are going to do is test those key elements, the technology, the field of play, and the operational flows and we’ll be testing every sport and every discipline.”

The Olympic Stadium in Stratford will host the 2012 BUCS Championships, as part of the testing process for the Olympics themselves. The BUCS Championships are typically held in Bedford.

“We’ve chosen an event that we can help shape, we can help mold within our test objective whilst allowing them to still run their event,” said Luckes.

The London 2012 organizers resisted the temptation to host an event with a higher profile than the BUCS Championships; they believe that a lower-key event will enable them to test the event with a greater scope.

Another aspect of planning for the games is scheduling of the events themselves. World and European heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis is still waiting to hear if she will be able to compete in both the heptathlon and the 100-meter hurdles.

“The schedule is set by the International Athletics Federation. We do discuss it with them but ultimately it’s up to them to approve,” said Luckes. “It is for UK Athletics to decide because we have to realize that our stakeholder is IAAF who comes to us with the schedule and if UK Athletics makes a representation to IAAF that’s something for them to take on board when accessing that. We have to be even-handed across all of the 200 events that we deal with to make sure there’s a level playing field.”

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