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London 2012 officials have revealed the much-anticipated design for their new £496m Olympic Stadium.
"No-one can say we've compromised on design, comprised on sustainability or comprised on the legacy potential," said Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell.
The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has already revealed work on the 80,000-seater stadium will begin three months ahead of schedule in April 2008.
It was initially expected to cost £280m but the costs have since been revised.
Animation of how London's 2012 stadium will look
How the site was cleared for the stadium
Lord Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee, told a news conference on Wednesday that the stadium would be a "stadium for a new era".
606: DEBATE
What do you think of the stadium design?
"It's a stadium that delivers on everything we said we would deliver on; a stadium with track and field as its primary legacy; a stadium that will be reduced from 80,000 seats in Olympic mode to a 25,000-seater community base," he said.
Chief architect Rob Sheard, of HOK Sport, said the stadium would make a big impact, but not in the same way that previous Olympic stadia had.
"This is not a stadium that's going to be screaming from the rooftops that it's bigger and more spectacular," he said. "This is just a cleverer building. This is a cleverer solution."
The atmosphere inside this bowl, we think, will be pretty special
Chief architect Rob Sheard
He added that the ability to convert the stadium from an 80,000-seater venue to a 25,000 one once the Olympics and Paralympics had finished was highly innovative and showed great forward thinking.
"We've ended up with a very tight, very compelling bowl," said Sheard. "The atmosphere inside this bowl, we think, will be pretty special."
HOK Sport is a firm of architects with a proven record for designing sporting venues.
It has been responsible for such projects as Wembley Stadium, the Millennium Stadium, the O2 Arena, the Emirates Stadium and Ascot Racecourse.
The new stadium, to be built in Stratford in east London, will have to be finished at least six months ahead of the opening ceremony in July 2012 to allow for test events to take place.
This is how the stadium comes together
An artist's impression of how the stadium will be pieced together
"It's absolutely non-negotiable that it has to be ready on time," said Radio 5 Live sports news correspondent Gordon Farquhar.
"They've got a large contingency fund if things go wrong but they don't want to spend more than that.
"If it's not ready on time, that is probably the greatest shame the nation has faced in years. But it will be."
After the Games have finished, the temporary seating will be taken away and the stadium will become a 25,000-capacity venue with a permanent athletics track.
An anchor tenant such as a football or rugby club is actively being sought, but one has yet to be found.
The ODA will be hoping for a positive response from the general public to the Olympic Stadium design following the criticism that the official 2012 logo received in June.
if they're right and it is tight, close to the action and creates a great atmosphere then fantastic and well done for not creating another souless LOOK AT ME!! enourmodome
if they weren't going to reduce the seating by that much then west ham or someone would probably want to move in. looks a bit meh but most stadiums do now.
looks alright. surprised there's no roof, but then i suppose with the way english summers are now it can then double as the swimming venue.
would have thought it would have made sense to be (if possible) a bit more flexible about what the capacity was reduced to and do everything to get a club of some sort on board before submitting final plans, as having a set 25k capacity has got to seriously limit their options now.
London 2012 stadium design unveiled. 
Blatantly going to double again before its finished. This and the WC bid really going to cripple our country.
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