London Working To Finalize Last 2 Olympic Venues

STEPHEN WILSON

LONDON (AP) — London Olympic organizers are working to reduce the travel time for athletes in the two sports whose venue for the 2012 Games is being changed to save money.

Paul Deighton, chief executive of London organizing committee LOCOG, said Tuesday he is confident a solution will be finalized by the end of the year for badminton and rhythmic gymnastics.

The committee has proposed moving the two sports to Wembley Arena — adjacent to Wembley Stadium on the northern outskirts of London — rather than build a temporary venue near the main Olympic Park complex in east London.

The two international federations have to sign off on the change.

Deighton says the sport officials are "perfectly happy" with the Wembley venue but are concerned by the extra travel time.

Scrapping the temporary venue in east London would save organizers about $33 million.

"In this economic environment it's not really acceptable to taxpayers to build a temporary venue when you've already got an acceptable one, if the tradeoff is another 20 minutes' travel time," Deighton told reporters at the Sports Event Management Conference in London.