Kelly Sotherton Angered by Olympic Stadium Plans
Kelly Sotherton, Olympic and world heptathlon bronze medallist, has announced her anger at West Ham's plans to take over the Olympic stadium after the summer 2012 London Olympic games.
West Ham has new owners in the shape of David Sullivan and David Gold who want to leave Upton Park and take up a lease on the newly built stadium in nearby Stratford as the club's new home, citing increased revenue from ticket sales among their reasons.
Sotherton, however, is adamant that the stadium should remain an athletics venue.
"The legacy should be athletics. It's out of order that football think they can just come and have it," she said.
"I'm a massive fan of football and a big Arsenal fan, but at the end of the day it's our stadium and I think the legacy is to enable us to stage future world and commonwealth championships - who knows, maybe another Olympics.
"To have an Olympic stadium turned into a football stadium by a club struggling near the foot of the Premier League, it's out of order."
The Hammer's planned move has already gained opposition, ex-London mayor Ken Livingstone, Olympics Minister Tessa Jowel and UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner have all made their aversions known.
One of the main arguments against the plan is that London would not have won the 2012 Summer Games had the Olympic committee known that the stadium would be turned into a football ground after the games had been held.
Gold and Sullivan have shown no sign of 'giving ground' to the opposition's arguments, Gold has even gone as far as to claim that the deterioration of the specialist Olympics track at Crystal Palace's stadium is proof that athletic's stadiums in themselves are unstable.
Sotherton has retorted to this claim; "Of course athletics can't use it every week, but I'm sure uses can be found for it in the off-season - rock concerts for example.
"We just don't have a stadium that replicates the size and grandeur of an Olympic stadium. It's something the sport desperately needs."
West Ham are priced at 4/5 by bwin to beat Bolton at their next fixture.
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