VIDEO: ‘Gateway to the Games' takes shape for London 2012 Olympics
07 October 2009
The 250 m-long, 40 m-wide bridge, which is fabricated using 1700 tonnes of steel, will form the roof of the Aquatics Centre training pool and be the main pedestrian access into the Olympic Park. It will carry an estimated 200000 people every day during the Games.
The new images also show the last of five new bridges into the Olympic Stadium site being lifted into place.
Construction work is now underway on 21 of 30 new bridges that will cross waterways, roads and rivers to create a "connected, open and accessible" Olympic Park.
Fourteen steel beams, up to 60 m long and weighing 75 tonnes each have been produced in Scunthorpe, fabricated in Bolton and lifted into place to form the first section of the main land bridge into the Olympic Park.
In total 6000 tonnes of steel supplied from across the UK is being utilised to join-up up the previously disconnected Olympic Park.
The huge land bridge that forms the main pedestrian entrance to the Olympic Park leads from the Stratford City development across the Aquatics Centre, forming the roof of the training pool, and towards the Olympic Stadium.
Around 1000 m3 of concrete has been poured to create five sets of bridge supports, in the last few weeks seven pairs of steel beams have been lifted into place to form the first section of the bridge spanning railway lines and roadways.
Work is now underway on the section of bridge that will form the Aquatics Centre training pool and create a public plaza in legacy. The land bridge is on track to be complete before summer 2010.
Around the Olympic Stadium site, which is being built on a compact island surrounded by water on three sides, the last of five new bridges has now been lifted into place. It completes a network of essential new links to join the Stadium with the rest of the Olympic Park.
Spanning 43 m across the City Mill river it creates an 11 m-wide pedestrian link into the eastern side of the Olympic Stadium and joins the other new bridges which link into the northern and western sides of the Stadium.
