The final touches are being added to the Olympic Stadium ahead of the first Rugby World Cup match on Wednesday when France take on Romania, one day later Zealand take on Namibia in the group pool stages of the competition at the Stratford stadium.
The organisers are hiding the orange running track under artificial grass in a similar way that the track will be hidden when West Ham plays there in August 2016. Once complete, there will not be a glimpse of the Olympic London 2012 running track left on show.
The Rugby World Cup bronze final on October 30th will be the biggest game of the fixtures on offer at the Olympic Stadium. Other matches in October include Ireland v Italy on October 4th and South Africa v United States on October 7th.
The running track and the pitch will both be replaced after the Rugby World Cup but artificial grass will still hide the new blue running track from view when installed in 2016.
Looking better everytime a new pic is shown, still don’t like the gap though
I still has reservation (including an expensive one for a 1966 seat). For comparison, a rugby pitch is 80m wide (70m for the playing surface plus 10m for the safety margins), while a football pitch is 45 – 90m wide.
Upton Park has the narrowest width pitch in the Premier League at 64m (70 yards). So if we transfer the same dimensions to the OS, we will still be a lot further from the action when West Ham move in.
However, if our long term plan is to keep promoting players like Antonio and Moses, playing with real width and pacy wing play, maybe we will go for a wider pitch at the new gaff. The increase in width will knacker our midfield players like Noble and Kouyate, but then Man City has one of the biggest pitches in the Premier League and we famously won there last week…….
Add this to the gap and it still looks like it has lots of potential to be a bit gash..
The OS pitch for football will be same as Wembley as the Premier League is trying to standardise on pitches 68m wide and 105m long. The grassed area at the Olympic Stadium is 120 metres long and 72.3m wide
Cheers Sean – I never knew that. Still worried though. I just hope it’s like buying a new TV – you nit-pick over minute differences in the shop, but when you get it home and it’s the only one you can see, it suddenly seems fine.
I have just bought a CAT B ticket too watch the France v Romania game, will let you know afterwards where that is located and what the view was like (I won’t know until I have picked up the ticket from the ticket office where it is).
It’s a shame that Upton park couldn’t be extended??.
Looks fantastic & its not finished yet, by the time next summer arrives itll be a wonderful place for us.
One question that jumps to mind is pre-season friendly’s.. Im guessing we will want to play a few (as many as poss) at the OS so we can settle into our new home BUT we will have to pay £100,000 to rent the stadium for each day – is that correct Sean ?