Athletes unaffected by loss of 2012 stadium wrap: Coe
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}By Avril Ormsby
LONDON (Reuters) - The loss of the eye-catching fabric wrap around London's main Olympic stadium will not adversely affect the performance of the athletes, 2012 Games chief Seb Coe said on Tuesday.
The 516 million pounds ($828.9 million) venue was designed with the wrap covering steel girders and grey concrete seating and would have allowed for colorful images and slogans to light up the stadium at night as well as minimizing crosswinds.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}However, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) ditched it last month to make seven million pounds of savings as the government imposed the severest public spending cuts in generations to rein in a record peacetime budget deficit.
The overall Olympic budget of 9.3 billion pounds remained largely intact.
"I am very clear the stadium fundamentally has to work for athletic performance ... I have run in stadiums that haven't always worked for athletic performance," former Olympic champion Coe told Reuters.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"That was the first thing I needed to satisfy myself that we weren't impinging upon, we are not impinging upon, and I think given the global scheme of things I don't think this is such an unreasonable thing to live with."
Coe said the 80,000-seater venue would still be "an impressive stadium."
"There may be some argument as to whether it (the wrap) actually accentuates the beauty of the stadium, I actually am not sure it does, but in a way that is an irrelevance," he added.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"What we are looking at is a budget which in the large part was protected during an extraordinarily tough public spending round."
(Editing by Tony Jimenez)