4 Comments

Possible bid to host Commonwealth games at LS

LS1Liverpool and Birmingham should ask to use London Stadium for athletics as part of their 2022 Commonwealth Games bids, says outgoing UK Athletics chief Ed Warner. Both cities are bidding for the Games after Durban was stripped of the event.

Warner says it is more cost effective to use the stadium, which hosted the 2012 Olympics and 2017 World Athletics and Para-athletics Championships. “The first one to make the call has the knockout bid,” he said.

Liverpool’s plan will see a temporary athletics track put into Everton’s proposed new stadium, while Birmingham is planning on refurbishing Alexander Stadium, the home of the national championships.

LS2“If I was leader of the Liverpool or Birmingham bid I would be ringing [London Mayor] Sadiq Khan and say ‘you know what, can we have the athletics in London and we will do everything else?” Warner told BBC Radio 5 live’s Sportsweek.

Warner, who is also co-chairman of London 2017, said: “I spoke to a civil servant, who is heavily involved in the Commonwealth Games bid, he said he was going to be ‘be rinsing the treasury for half a billion pounds to put on an English Commonwealth Games. My answer is, save a load of money, use this amazing facility, which is the best in the world and make it an English bid.”

The 2014 Commonwealth Games were hosted in Glasgow between 23rd July and 3rd August but any such bid for the London Stadium would have to be done with full cooperation and permission with West Ham. When the Hammers signed the concessionaire agreement for the former Olympic Stadium they knew that the 2017 IAAF World Championships would take priority for one year only but in all other years West Ham have the priority for the start of their Premier League season. If a bid was made it would be very much the Commonwealth games fitting around West Ham and not the other way round.

 

About Sean Whetstone

I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball, I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh. Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons! Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter

4 comments on “Possible bid to host Commonwealth games at LS

  1. Non story it will never happen.

  2. Brendan Foster just said that Ed Warners statement was stupid, he also said something else the Stadium was the jewel in Athletics crown but at the moment the solution at the London Stadium is not sustainable so he urged the people running the Stadium to look at how it can be made sustainable. I might be wrong but I think that would require rebuilding the stadium to make it fit for purpose something we could all get behind I am sure 😄

  3. When are the games and will it interfere like this season ?
    With you 32 ? Knock it down and start again , its the only solution 😂👅
    Then there’s our lease ?
    Sybil get the contracts out and put us in the picture please 😂😂

  4. We would have won the 4x400m if Noble had been on the final leg lol

Comments are closed.