London Olympic chiefs defended the salaries of its top executives on Thursday after it emerged some were earning up to 100,000 pounds more than first thought.

About seven senior executives at the Olympic Delivery Authority are being paid more than 200,000 pounds.

The news comes amid continuing unease at the overall 9.3 billion pound cost of hosting the 2012 Games.

The authority published the salaries of its executives in its annual report for 2006/7, but the report only included the amount earned so far that year.

Among the big earners were Howard Shiplee, director of construction, who is on 258,750 pounds not 147,000 pounds as stated.

Others include Dennis Hone, director of finance and corporate services, who is on 253,624 pounds not 162,000 pounds and Alison Nimmo, director of design and regeneration, who is on 207,000 pounds not 158,000 pounds.

Godric Smith, director of communications, is on 175,950 pounds not 105,000 pounds.

The figures emerged after a written Parliamentary question in the House of Commons.

An ODA spokesman said: "This is a project without precedent.

"It is one of the biggest business challenges in the world and one of the biggest jobs in the construction industry -- a multi-billion pound delivery programme to a fixed deadline.

"The remuneration of the senior management team reflects the scale of this challenge and is consistent with industry market levels.

"It also reflects the strong foundations the senior management team has established for the ODA and the progress made during the critical set-up phase, a feature repeatedly endorsed by the IOC."

It denied having tried to conceal the salaries, saying it had followed standard business practice.

"We take our responsibilities to transparency very seriously and the annual report clearly states under the name of each director the date they started in post at the ODA and therefore the salary paid from that date for that year," the spokesman added.

"This is completely standard practice -- the report was approved by the National Audit Office.

"Since this report updated salary figures have been given in a recent Parliamentary answer so this has been a completely open process and there has no attempted to avoid public scrutiny."

Eurosport