The current track at the High Performance centre, which was laid in 1997, is either too hard or too soft in places, and will be relaid as part of a re-vamp which will bring the venue up to the very highest world standards two clear years before the London 2012 Olympics.

Dan Pfaff, the recently appointed director of the Lee Valley centre, estimated today that the venue was "30 per cent off" being as good as the best such facilities in the world.

But Pfaff, who coached Canada’s Donovan Bailey to the world and Olympic 100 metres titles, added that a series of innovations including the relaying of the track and the arrival of new physiological testing equipment - including a Tensile Myographic Unit costing around £10,000 which will make accurate measurements of athletes’s muscle capacity - would see it move up to 100 per cent within the next six months.

"It may be that an athlete feels good when they are doing exercises in training, and their coach may want them to carry on, but if the graph is going down it will show that this could be risking injury."

Pfaff said this would be an invaluable resource for a centre that is attracting an increasing amount of elite athletes.

"Around 50-60 per cent of British athletes who will be at the Olympics are based here already," he said.

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