Forest City Velodrome in London, Canada
The Jakarta Government and Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama in particular are working hard to prepare the capital to host the Asian Games in 2018. Yesterday, Ahok met the British ambassador to Indonesia, Moazzam Malik at City Hall and one of the things they discussed were joint plans to build a new Olympic standard velodrome in time for the games.
(If you’re not a fan of competitive cycling, you might be asking yourself, what’s a velodrome? (It’s not the sequel to Mad Max, in case you were wondering) It’s actually a special racing track built specifically with bicycles in mind. The turns at both ends of the tracks feature sloped walls so that racers can take turns while maintaining their speed.)
During his meeting with Ahok, Malik discussed building an Olympic-standard velodrome similar to the Lee Valley Velopark that was used when London hosted the Olympic Games in 2012.
Jakarta actually already has a velodrome at the Velodrome Sports Hall in Rawamangun, East Jakarta, that the city was considering refurbishing for the Asian Games. But Ahok thinks the city can build a brand new one with much higher standards for a budget similar or even less than the Rp 450 billion that had already been earmarked for the existing sports hall.
“So I asked the Ministry of Sports, How much do you want to refurbish the old Velodrome?’ They said Rp 450 billion. Aduh, that sounds terrible, spending a budget of Rp 450 billion [on refurbishment. It’s better if I say, ‘Help them make me a design for about $30 million (~Rp 420 billion), but make it the same standard as in London,” Ahok said as quoted by Kompas.
Malik said England would be happy to lend their experience in building the new facility given their country’s recent experience in hosting an Olympic level event. But he said the Jakarta Government needs to move quickly if they’re going to get it done on time – meaning the tender process should at least start this year.
“If time is limited, it will be difficult to realize the plan,” Malik said, as quoted by CNN Indonesia.
