The first of the Olympic Stadium’s lighting towers have been lifted into place, taking the venue to its full height of 60m above the field of play.
A 650-tonne crane was assembled in the middle of the stadium to lift the 28m-high lighting towers on top of the inner ring of the cable-net roof, one of the toughest engineering challenges on the stadium project to date.
The lighting towers, which will illuminate the action on the field of play and are necessary for high definition footage, are located high above the Stadium roof to ensure optimum lighting angles which avoid dazzling spectators, photographers and competitors.
Olympic Delivery Authority chairman John Armitt said: “The lifting of the lighting towers is a significant engineering and construction challenge and has taken a huge amount of work and planning, complicated by snow, wind and rain.”
There will be a total of 14 lighting towers, each weighing 34 tonnes, designed with integrated walkways, access, power supplies and cabling and lighting.
The cable-net roof of the Olympic Stadium was lifted into place at the end of 2009 and will be covered with material once all the lighting towers are in place.
Sir Robert McAlpine is the main contractor for the stadium.
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