UK - OLYMPICS 2012: Olympic press centre unveiled as London movies into final month of preparations.

Record ID: 331080

  • Title: UK - OLYMPICS 2012: Olympic press centre unveiled as London movies into final month of preparations.
  • Date: 28th June 2012
  • Summary: WIDE OF NEWS CONFERENCE BEGINNING PEOPLE WATCHING
  • Embargoed: 13th July 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA7ZGZG2W62F0J5S6QDNQPT6LUV
  • Story Text: With a month to go before the London Olympics, the media centre of the Olympic Park opened for business for the first time on Wednesday (June 27).
    Up to 6,000 accredited press members are expected to work from the 31,000 square metre centre, which is the first of the Olympic Park venues to open ahead of the Games.
    Britain's sports minister Hugh Robertson was on hand to cut the ribbon. LOCOG CEO Paul Deighton told gathered journalists that time seemed to be speeding up as the Games approached.
    "Every hour it's getting closer. We've been on this seven year journey and time passes exponentially faster the closer you get to the deadline. I expect in a heartbeat we'll be at the Opening Ceremony. This is, I hope, confirmation of that," he said.
    The press centre will be a home away from home for the weeks of the Games, and sits beside a 200 metre-long 'high street' offering everything from a post office to a pharmacy and dry cleaners.
    "The equivalent of a 32 storey office block, there are 2000 folding tables, 400 television sets and we estimate that just over half a million meals will be eaten here, and about 1.6 million cups of tea drunk, as Paul mentioned earlier," LOCOG communications director Jackie Brock-Doyle said of the press centre.
    Not everyone will be made as welcome as the international press.
    Britain has already refused a visa for the head of Syria's national Olympic Committee, General Mowaffak Joumaa, to travel to London.
    "There's a very straight forward system for this. Anybody who's on a UN or EU banned list can't get in, and that would be the case wherever these games are, and every single visa application is checked through by committee. Any controversial ones come to me as one of three ministers who looks at them. If people have very close connections with regimes that are guilty of human rights abuses, then they're not going to be welcome in London," Robertson said.
    Robertson had earlier told BBC radio that he expected more exclusions in the days and weeks to come.
    Mowaffak is seen as a close friend of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been strongly criticised by Britain and other Western and Arab nations for a crackdown on an opposition movement seeking to overthrow him.
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