First 2010 stadium opened
2009-06-07 17:27

Port Elizabeth - South Africa's first newly-built 2010 World Cup stadium officially opened on Sunday in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth a year before kick-off next June.

"For us today's first opening of a newly-built 2010 FIFA World Cup stadium is a huge boost," said local organising committee chief Danny Jordaan.

"It demonstrates the capacity of SA's construction industry and our commitment to deliver on all our 2010 FIFA World Cup promises," Jordaan said in a statement.

Eight 2010 games, including a quarter final and a third and fourth place playoff, will be hosted at the city's 48 000-seater Nelson Mandela Bay stadium.

The new ground hosts the touring British and Irish Lions rugby team on Tuesday when they will play a local Southern Kings Invitational side.

The 2010 'curtain raiser' Confederations Cup starts on Sunday at four refurbished stadiums in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Rustenburg.

Five additional new stadiums that will also be used in Africa's first World Cup were "shaping up nicely" to be ready ahead of 2010, Jordaan said.

The eight nation Confederations Cup will be played for two weeks in four host cities. The World Cup follows a year later at 10 grounds in nine cities.

- http://www.sport24.co.za/Content/Soc, stadium_opened

Nelson Mandela opening

nmb

Cooking pot stadium getting ready for WCup feast

By Raf Casert, AP Sports Writer
JOHANNESBURG — Where World Cup finalists will ceremoniously walk down the players tunnel, workers in security vests stood amid puddles and steel nets. Where VIPs will park for the final match, dozens were spreading mortar on brick.
With one year to go until the World Cup kicks off, the swirling red dust and relentless noise produced by 3,500 workers is everywhere. But towering over it all is the stadium at Soccer City, well on its way to be finished in time and become the new "cathedral" of African football.

"We want an icon out of the World Cup," chief World Cup organizer Danny Jordaan said Wednesday, one year and one day before the first match of the 2010 World Cup. "We want a monument."

With a little more beautification in Soccer City, Jordaan and the rest of the world should have it by the end of October.

What the Bird's Nest stadium with its mesh of concrete beams was for the Beijing Olympics, the "Cooking Pot Stadium" will be for South Africa's World Cup. Instead of a nest, the Soccer City arena resembles a traditional African calabash pot and will have a lighted "Ring of Fire" around it.

The metaphor related to the stadium's chubby exterior is hardly the only one going around. Walking down the narrow players tunnel, water still wets the uneven textured concrete. The rough edge could well stay to highlight Johannesburg's gold mining past.
When the sun is out, even the backdrop of slagheaps around the stadium have the color of gold.

From many seats on the upper tier, the skyscrapers of Johannesburg glimmer in the distance, but the significance of its location is closer by. It is built on the edges of Soweto, the infamous township of Apartheid's racial segregation which has also long been the beating heart of the nation's football.

The stadium is actually being built on the rubble of the site where Nelson Mandela had his first mass rally after his release from prison in 1990.

When it comes to money, football has long been the poor cousin of rugby and cricket, sports dominated by whites during Apartheid. So building Soccer City is physical proof that football, the most popular sport among black people, has fully come of age.

It may have cost more than its original estimate of 1.5 billion rand ($185 million), but with 94,000 seats, the stadium will be Africa's biggest.

"The World Cup gave an opportunity to complete that dream that in this country you have a stadium built in the name of football," Jordaan said. "That is football's cathedral. That is football's Wembley in South Africa."

Inside, there also is a reference to Berlin's Olympic Stadium, where the 2006 World Cup final was played. Breaking the monotony of the orange seats are 10 black lines of seats moving upward, pinpointing the way to the nine other World Cup venues. The 10th goes straight to the German capital.

Over the past months, the outside paneling in different shades of brown, red and ochre have given the stadium its distinct cooking pot look. Some spaces will be left open for the natural light to flow in. At dusk from inside, the spotted exterior gives it a fairy tale look.

"It is going to be a magnificent sight," Jordaan said. "If you fly over that stadium at night and it glows, it is going to be truly an amazing sight."

At other places, the inside beams and pillars dart elegantly in serpentine fashion, giving some views a touch of Gaudi.

Huge cranes placing the panels still obstruct the finishing of the "Ring of Fire," where the turnstiles will be.

The roof itself cradles all the stands, and has the added advantage of keeping the sound in.

"When you have 94,000 people filling that stadium, it will be the noisiest World Cup ever," Jordaan said.

"They will come with their vuvuzelas," Jordaan added, referring to the plastic trumpets which are a must-have item for any fan of South Africa's Bafana Bafana team. "That noise will be captured in the dome."

Dancing in the stands is also common and the stadium had a "dynamic loading" test for resonance to make sure it would be strong enough the withstand the unified stamping.

One year ahead of the June 11 kickoff, Jordaan already knows that visions of a sea of heaving masses from around the globe in this melting pot of cultures should be the lasting memory of the World Cup.

"These," Jordaan said, "are the kind of images we want the world to see."

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=836780&page=44

Greenpoint in Cape town.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=882256&page=6

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