Baku "is facing a race against time to be ready to host next year's inaugural European Games with thousands of construction workers scrambling around the clock to get all the facilities finished," according to Julian Linden of REUTERS.
Just a quarter of the 16 venues "have been completed but organizers are confident everything will be ready before the opening ceremony on June 12."
Given less than three years to prepare for the Games, the Azerbaijan capital "was always facing a Herculean task."
But with 4,000 people currently working 24 hours a day just on the 68,000-seat new national stadium, organizers said that they "have no doubts Baku will meet the deadline." Baku 2015 COO Simon Clegg said, "I'm incredibly confident. This is not an issue, I have no concerns at all. Let's just say they lay concrete very quickly in Azerbaijan." Clegg said that "all the early signs were positive for the European Games." Organizers "have already signed up six major sponsors" and are close to a deal on a seventh. They "have also completed most of their television broadcast details" (REUTERS, 11/8).
