One year since the 2012 London Games and all eyes are once again on the Olympic – now Queen Elizabeth – Park, where a weekend of athletic and musical commemoration begins today (26.07.13).
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Fastest man on the planet Usain Bolt is in town for the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games, joining the likes of British gold medalists Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis-Hill and thirty other medalists, plus, in the crowd, London Mayor Boris Johnson, who is in no doubt about the positive Olympic after-effect.
“It is very largely, or at least partially, as a result of the Olympics and Paralympics that we are seeing a surge of confidence and optimism in investment in London,” said the Mayor.
“Schemes that have been blocked for decades are now going ahead: Battersea, Croydon, Royal Albert Dock.”
Johnson said that plans were advanced for an indoor ski-slope adjoining the Westfield shopping centre next to the Queen Elizabeth Park as well as branches of University College London and a major, as yet unnamed, London museum.
Before all that, alongside the athletics reunion, there’s the Open East Festival, billed as a mix of “food, theatre, sport, music and family fun”. Among the acts on show are Viv Albertine, The Waterboys and legendary DJ Don Letts and there’s a replica of Stonehenge in the form of a bouncy castle, created by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller.
