London 2012 organisers showed off their newly laid Olympic track on Monday and assured visiting officials assessing a bid for the 2017 World Athletics Championships that it would be there for keeps.
"The athletics track is a non-negotiable part of the legacy of this stadium," Sports and Olympics minister Hugh Robertson told Reuters on the track after meeting an International Association of Athletics Federations' (IAAF) inspection commission delegation.
"Once we had spoken to them, there were no questions afterwards," he added.
"We have now a letter of guarantee from the treasury solicitor that says the track will remain in the stadium in legacy mode and all the indications are that that has now put that argument to bed."
Premier League soccer club Tottenham Hotspur are fighting a legal battle over the future of the Olympic Stadium in east London.
A court hearing into the awarding of preferred bidder status to take over the Stadium after the Games to West Ham United is scheduled for October 18.
Tottenham, who would have removed the running track after the Games had they won the bid, argue that a 40 million pound ($62 million) loan from Newham council gave West Ham an unfair economic advantage.
The uncertainty had threatened the bid for the 2017 championships with the IAAF making clear that London had no chance without the Olympic Stadium being available.
NON-NEGOTIABLE
Robertson said even if Tottenham won their hearing, it would be a hollow victory.
"The judicial review is about the process by which the decision was reached, not the substance of the decision itself," he said.
"So therefore if the litigants were to win in the high court, and I don't think they will, we would simply start the process again and make the athletics track a non-negotiable part of the solution."
London 2012 organising committee chairman Sebastian Coe, a twice 1,500 metres Olympic gold medallist, turned out in his running kit to give the track a test along with British athletes hoping to be in the medals next year.
They were joined on the track by children from a local primary school before reporters were also allowed to try out the springy, 13.5mm deep surface for themselves.
"It's a lovely surface, it's a really good surface," Coe declared of the red Mondo surface which was laid in August with a training circuit nearing completion outside the main stadium.
"Instinctively, it felt a bit like Zurich," added the 54-year-old. "Which was good for me."
"It's an intimate stadium...and of course as we pointed out to the IAAF this morning, there will be some reconfiguration if we get 2017."
Coe said he had organised a private meeting with IAAF officials and tackled the main issues head on.
"They went away with the guarantees they needed," he said.
"We didn't leave them in any doubt at all about the commitment to the stadium.
"We made a very strong case this morning and we will continue to make that case, and it's a compelling case."
London is bidding against Qatar's Doha for the championships, with a decision due to be taken by the IAAF in Monaco in November.
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