London 2012 Olympic Stadium Reaches Full Height

The first of the Olympic Stadium's lighting towers has been successfully lifted into place, taking the venue to its full height, 60m above the field of play.

A 650-tonne crane is lifting the 28m-high lighting towers into place, on top of the inner ring of the cable-net roof.

The lighting towers will light up the field of play and are needed for high definition (HD) footage. They are located above the Stadium roof to ensure the best lighting angles and to avoid dazzling spectators, photographers and competitors.


Olympic Delivery Authority Chairman John Armitt said: "The Olympic Stadium will be at the heart of the action in 2012 and its image will be beamed to billions of people across the world. The team has made impressive progress over the last year and we are on schedule to finish by the summer of 2011 to give a year for Test Events.

"The lifting of the lighting towers is a significant engineering and construction challenge and has taken a huge amount of work and planning, complicated by the snow, wind and rain. Once all 14 towers have been lifted the venue will be another huge step closer to completion."

(CD/GK)