The six-day Olympic test event here featured six teams in action with Australia, China, Croatia, France, Great Britain and Serbia all competing.

With the Olympic Park still predominantly a construction site, spectators congregated at the Alma Street entrance of Olympic Park, located just behind Westfield Stratford City and were taken to and from the venue by a fleet of buses.

The venue has a capacity of 12,000 with a black and orange design to represent the colours of a basketball but only 3,000 spectators per day are permitted to attend for the test event for safety reasons.


The majority of the noisy spectators in attendance today were, as you would expect, supporting Britain although there were still loud cheers for the other five competing nations as they took to the court.

The Britain team is slightly weaker than usual at present with Mensah-Bonsu out injured and Chicago Bulls star Luol Deng unable to play until the weekend due to other commitments and the hosts suffered a 80-62 defeat at the hands of France in the final game of the day although their brave display that was loudly applauded by their fans.

Despite the injury to Mensah-Bonsu, the 27-year-old from London was there to cheer on his teammates and said he was delighted to have a chance to look around at where he hopes to be competing next year but admitted he was slightly disappointed that such a stunning venue would be taken down after 2012.

"This is a phenomenal arena," Mensah-Bonsu told insidethegames.

"If you think that not long ago it was in the construction phase and now it is almost ready to host Olympic competition.

"It is an amazing achievement.

"I am very glad that they managed to put together such a great court in London.

"I just wish that it wasn't a temporary arena so we could keep it here and the sport could have an amazing legacy from the Olympics but unfortunately that couldn't happen.

"However it is definitely as good as any of the major NBA arenas I have competed in America and I'm really excited that I will be playing here next year.

"We have got some really good guys in this GB team and I'm not one for predictions but we will definitely surprise the world with what we can do at London 2012."

The first ever competitive match at the Arena saw Australia defeat China by 71-43.

Both teams received strong support from the crowd, particularly when three-pointers were scored, while the breaks in play saw hip-hop dancers take to the court and members of the audience selected at random to participate in shooting competitions.

The second match on court saw and a more even contest as Croatia beat Serbia 83-71 but the highlight of the day came when Great Britain took to the court against France.

The hosts received deafening support throughout from the rapturous crowd despite and their 18-point defeat to France, John Armitt, the chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), said he was delighted to see the arena host the first test event on the Olympic Park.

"It is great to see this venue being used," he told insidethegames.

"An empty building is not much use as you need a building being put to the purpose it was designed for.

"We will learn this week whether this buildings works as well as we would like it to or whether it needs some fine-tuning.

"That is the whole point of having these test events but it all seems to be going very well so far.

"The seats are very comfortable and people are sounding very cheerful about their day out so it looks good at this stage."


The Arena, the fourth Olympic Park venue completed by the ODA earlier this year, was built at a cost of £42 million ($69 million/€48 million) making it the most expensive temporary venue ever used for a Games but Armitt said he was happy with the decision not to build a permanent venue for basketball.

"You have to go through these choices and it would have cost us a lot more to have made this a permanent venue," he explained.

"The thing about temporary venues these days is that in order to make them safe, they become quite substantial structures but this is probably between a half and two-thirds of what it would have cost to make it a permanent venue.

"The more important thing is what you do with it after the Games and you don't want it sitting here not getting used so I think building this as a temporary venue to be recycled elsewhere was the right decision.

"There is talk of this going to Rio for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympics and that would be great but I don't really have a preference for it after London 2012.

"It could go to Brazil or even move elsewhere in Britain and become a permanent venue but for me the big thing is that it is being used and that people getting enjoyment out of it."

During the Olympic Games next year, the Arena will host both basketball and handball while during the Paralympics it will stage wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby.

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