Eurosport - Wed, 29 Jul 15:26:00 2009
Organisers of the London 2012 Olympics are determined to hold the shooting events at the Woolwich Barracks - despite ongoing wrangles with its British Army landlords and UK shooting organisations.
The choice of shooting venue has already caused much consternation - with officials from the sport's national governing body critical of the £18 million temporary facility, claiming it leaves them with no legacy value after the Games.
They have called for events to be held at the National Shooting Centre in Bisley or a proposed new facility in Barking.
London 2012 have already ruled out Bisley - which is over 40 miles from the Olympic Village - but have installed Barking as a back-up option.
Paul Deighton, chief executive of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, admits a decision is not expected imminently.
Although he remains confident of a resolution before the end of the year, with the International Olympic Commitee due to stage their next inspection visit in November.
The major problem with Woolwich is the amount of access that London 2012 would need to the venue - which is still a working military barracks - before the Games.
"Given that the Woolwich Barracks are one of the core bases for army personnel based in London, it's really a case of trying to not inconvenience people too much," said Deighton.
"The Army are working with us very constructively to make it all work and so it's a very good and straightforward discussion.
"I know in the past there have been one or two people in the Army who have been unhappy and said things but on the whole they are very constructively engaged in making it all work.
"At the moment we're fleshing out how it works in Woolwich, which is a relatively constrained site.
"Once we've figured that out we'll be in a position to make a final decision.
"The decision that we currently have is that Woolwich is the venue but we have Barking as a back-up, in case the constraints of working with a pretty tight site prove too challenging.
"While it's nice to have it all crystalised, we're still comfortably within our schedule. "
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