The first of the Olympic’s motorway lanes reserved for Olympic athletes and officials is operational, as the athletes and visitors begin pouring in to Britain.
One lane of the M4 motorway linking Heathrow with the western edge of the capital has been closed to all non-Olympic traffic. It forms part of a 48km network of lanes designed to convey 82,000 athletes and officials to their destinations as quickly as possible.
Open for business: the first Games Lane was put into action on Monday Photo: EPA
By the afternoon long tail backs were reported on the motorway from Heathrow into London. Meanwhile, athletes have met with other unexpected problems. The twice world 400 metre hurdle champion Kerron Clement and the Australian sailing team had to spend hours in a bus from Heathrow Airport to the Olympic village after their driver got lost.
Sports Minister Hugh Robertson says problems like this are "isolated incidents." London’s Mayor Boris Johnson joked that the delay meant visiting athletes saw more of London. He also appealed for people not to drive in London during the Games to help avoid congestion.
Hugh Robertson, British Sports Minister, said, "Clearly if a driver got lost that’s not a great start, but, you must remember there are an enormous amount of people who have finished their journey successfully today, who moved between Heathrow and the athletes village without a problem at all, deeply regret if there were one or two isolated incidents where that has not been the case, clearly they’ll be put right over the next few days."
Boris Johnson, London Mayor, said, "Really my advice to people thinking of using a car in central London over the next few weeks is really ’think again’, and as for the fines that people may unfortunately incur in the games lanes or on the M4 well obviously that I’m afraid is part of the price you pay for enforcing the system."
