The London Olympics 2012 will be using a temporary basketball arena which will be later sold to the next host of the games; Brazil. As the 2016 Olympics venue, Brazil is to buy the arena after the use this time round. The announcement was made on Sunday.
Temporary Olympics basketball arena likely to be sold to Brazil
The deputy venue media manager of the basketball arena Stuart Buss said that the sport [basketball] is not too popular in Britain as of yet thus there will be no need to build a permanent court as the usage after the games are over will be little. There are other arenas which have been built for the sole purpose of the Olympics and will either be torn down or dismantled or sold after the games are over.
He said: “Basketball is not a huge sport in Britain. There is no natural demands for a permanent construction of a basketball arena. Some of the arenas of the London Olympic Games are not built on long-term condition. The basketball arena is one of them.”
It is still not been completely confirmed that it will be sold to Brazil but they are the most likely buyers. Buss said that the talks ongoing with the Brazil Olympics Organization was going on a positive road and that the deal will most likely be sealed with them. The basketball court can hold up to 12000 people and is at the Olympic Park, east of London.
Buss said that building a permanent construction would have had cost them much more and since the court will be most and only used during the games, it was best that they build a temporary one. The time taken to build the court was also less compared to if they had wanted to build a permanent one.
“A permanent construction costs about 3-4 times of the temporary one. We saved a lot by building the arena. Furthermore, the length of the building time is much shorter. We used only 18 months to build this arena, which is the shortest in the history of the Olympics for a basketball arena.”
The court will be used for the first rounds for both the men’s and women’s teams but the finals will take place in the North Greenwich Arena.
Tags: Basketball, Brazil, London Olympics 2012, Olympics, Sport
