Sanderson breaks ranks to question legacy promises

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A lot of people - especially politicians and London's bid team - have talked regularly about 2012's great sporting legacy but former Olympic javelin champion Tessa Sanderson knows better than any of them whether it's being delivered.

Why? Because for the last few years she has run a successful academy looking for young sporting talent in Newham, the London borough where the Olympic Park has been built. She's really at grassroots level - not just talking about it.

So when Sanderson says she has huge fears about whether the Games will leave an athletics legacy, 2012 chairman Lord Coe and the International Olympic Committee should listen very carefully - especially when the IOC's top brass are in London this week for a key meeting.

Sanderson, who has lost the funding for her academy from Newham Council just a year before the Games, makes her outspoken comments in an interview with BBC London's Kurt Barling today (see the extended interview in the video above).

She has two key points:

1. She fears the sporting legacy isn't being delivered. She questions why Newham Council is prepared to loan �40 million to West Ham Football Club to help them move into the Olympic Stadium after the Games and why officials are not prepared to give her tens of thousands to back her academy.
2. She also fears the stadium won't work after the Games with football and athletics. She is worried that track and field will be thrown out in a few years.

I've heard this second point being discussed a lot in the last few weeks.

Some people feel West Ham may get so frustrated with the huge distance between the seats and the pitch that they will try to convert the stadium into a football-only ground. West Ham have promised to provide a multi-sport legacy.

But Sanderson's fear is that the club won't like the idea of javelins and hammers being thrown onto the pitch during the close season when they are trying to prepare a perfect surface.

Sanderson has now given up her role on the Olympic Park Legacy Company board. She wasn't allowed to vote on the bids from West Ham and Tottenham because she was said to have a conflict of interest because of her previous funding from Newham Council, supporters of the West Ham bid.

But it's clear she is frustrated she didn't get the chance to ask more questions about the athletics legacy.

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More: BBC London 2012

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adrianwarner/2011/04/sanderson_breaks_ranks_to_ques.html

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