London 2012: IOC agrees to cancel fencing facility

[Mr Epee]

The Guardian: IOC to approve U-turn over fencing arena

I'm a little curious at what point a 8,000-seat £100,000,000 purpose-built fencing arena slipped into the construction plans in the first place.

Looks like a project BEGGING to be axed.

[downunder]

This is old old news.


But god, a dedicated massive fencing venue. What a ridiculous idea. http://blog.fencing.net/pictures-of-...cing-venue/36/

[Nolano]

No kidding. I know the Beijing Fencing Hall will be used as a convention center or something afterwards, but it's ridiculous to build a giant purpose built fencing building for about a week of tournaments.

[Mr Epee]

Originally Posted by downunder

This is old old news.

Maybe in London. ;-)

But god, a dedicated massive fencing venue. What a ridiculous idea. http://blog.fencing.net/pictures-of-...cing-venue/36/

For those of you playing along at home in the US.

£100,000,000 = Just a shade under $200,000,000.

Hey, I love fencing more than the next guy... but there's no way this project made sense. My guess is that this was probably somewhat expendable from the start... the possibility of budget overruns is pretty much a given, and seemingly over-extravagant facilities such as this are likely the margin of error.

[oiuyt]

Notice that not only was this an insanely expensive venue, it was also a TEMPORARY building.

It's been discussed periodically on fencingforum.com.

-B

[KD5MDK]

Well, it was scheduled to be relocated to somewhere else afterwards, as I recall.

[Phrogger]

A dual- or multi-use facility is the only thing that makes sense. I often wonder why more clubs don't reduce their costs by letting others use their space; there's lots of activities that require open indoor space. Dance classes, martial arts, yoga, and even church events come to mind.