LONDON, (Reuters) – A bid for London to host the 2015 world athletics championships was abandoned yesterday because of fears over a potential legal wrangle surrounding the future of the 2012 Olympic main stadium.
The decision leaves Beijing as the sole bidder and it is expected the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) will confirm the Chinese capital as host city when it meets later this month.
Britain’s governing body for athletics, UK Athletics (UKA), said it planned to bid for the next championships in 2017.
UKA Chairman Ed Warner said he was disappointed not to be pursuing the 2015 bid but said “we need to present the IAAF with a bid that is free of any uncertainties”.
The 2015 bid was ditched after it emerged the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), responsible for finding an anchor tenant for the 516 million pound ($828 million) main stadium after the Olympics, could find itself open to a legal challenge over its bidding process.
Olympic minister Hugh Robertson told reporters he had become aware of a possible legal problem two weeks ago.
The OPLC’s criteria only commit the winning bidder to provide an athletics legacy, not necessarily a track inside the main stadium. The OPLC, a public sector not-for-profit company, will not make a decision on its preferred bidder until the turn of the year, with a lease agreement signed by the end of March, after the deadline for 2015 bids.
If a bidder wanted to move the track elsewhere they could argue the 2015 decision might disadvantage them by committing them to keeping the track where it was, leading to a claim for damages.
Premier League soccer club West Ham United have formally submitted a bid to take over the stadium, while rivals Tottenham Hotspur have teamed up with AEG, the U.S. operator of London’s O2 Arena, to mount a joint bid to lease it.
