Athletics: ‘Salesman’ Sebastian Coe thrilled to seal deal with iconic venue

Coe watched the likes of World Championship medallists Hannah Miley and Ellen Gandy take to the water on the first day of the first competition to be held at the Aquatics Centre. And, for Coe, it evoked memories of attempting to persuade the International Olympic Committee that London should be chosen to stage the 2012 Games, a bid they eventually won in July 2005. Coe said: “I was basically standing on a tower block half a mile from here and trying to say to the IOC ‘you see that 50-foot mountain of fridges, we’re going to put an Aquatics Centre there’. “I felt like a slightly dodgy Spanish timeshare salesman. “Having moved 80,000 tons of contaminated soil and replaced it with 120,000 tons of clean soil, which we did on this site, having dealt with the archaeological find of four skeletons under the site, having moved about 100 really dilapidated and some of them disused business premises, to have something we consider to be the gateway to the [Olympic] Park – 75per cent of people coming into the Park will be through this gateway – we thought it was really important we made this the iconic venue.” While the capacity this summer will be 17,000, it will be reduced to 2,500 post-Games with the provision to add 1,500 temporary seats, Coe admitting hosting the European Championships would be a future ambition. For the double Olympic champion, the Aquatics Centre will be an integral part of the Games legacy. Professing his admiration for the hard-working swimmers, Coe believes they – along with athletes and cyclists – cannot be beaten in terms of training. He then joked: “I’m going to get letters from 23 other sports, saying ‘what on earth are you talking about’.” The 55-year-old also described his memories of Grant Hackett’s triumphant 1,500m freestyle victory in Sydney 12 years ago and its effect in Australia. “People talk about Cathy Freeman putting her imprint on that but that was a great moment for Hackett. “I was in Darling Harbour watching that and the place erupted. “I think that did as much as Cathy Freeman.”