We are scared about Friday: Games organiser

Add as a preferred source on Google

Sydney: Sydney braced for its biggest ever transport challenge when almost 400,000 spectators will stream into Olympic Park on Friday, the opening day of track and field.

Games organisers on Thursday made no secret they were nervous about the unprecedented numbers that will stretch public transport in Australia's largest city to the limit.

To make matters worse, rain is forecast. "Friday's the day we've been scared about," said Paul Willoughby, a member of the Sydney Games Organising Committee. "Everything up to now has been the calm before the storm," he told a news conference. "It's now hailstones."

Track and field is the high point of the Olympics, and the atmosphere in Sydney is electric as national icon Cathy Freeman prepares for the race that all Australia has been waiting for, the women's 400 metres.

The awesome challenge facing Games organisers on Friday will be to fill and empty the 110,000-seat Stadium Australia - the world's largest Olympic venue - twice in one day. It is a feat never before attempted.

Organisers estimate it will take at least three hours for trains and buses to shuttle each wave of spectators to the vast arena. For there to be any hope of success, the first batch must set out well before dawn.

"That will put an extraordinary pressure on the transport system," Willoughby said A single-track train service links Olympic Park with central Sydney. Earlier this month it was briefly out of action after high winds blew down overhead power cables.

Friday's crowds will reach their peak as spectators stream out of the morning session at Stadium Australia and collide with crowds arriving for the evening programme.

To keep things moving, crowds will be directed along a one-way circular route around the site. The message from organisers, whose chief nightmare is panic surges, is "go with the flow".

Some 2,000 police and an army of volunteers will be on hand to keep order and deal with any emergencies. Parents are advised to label their small children clearly in case they got lost.

Nevertheless, organisers still expect there will be a standstill at times as spectactors are funnelled through security gates on their way into arenas. Olympic Park is home to venues in which 14 of 28 Olympic sports are being contested.

Organisers appealed on Thursday to ordinary commuters to avoid public transport. But their most important message was "be patient.