Stadium strikes a chord

The London Stadium is gaining ground on Wembley as the best outdoor music concert venue in the capital. Depeche Mode, Guns n’ Roses and Robbie Williams all played shows there before the championships. Promoters like the Stratford base because it has more room for standing on the pitch and large gangways mean concert-goers can get out of the stadium within six minutes.

After the West ham security nightmare at the start of their tenancy a year ago, the biggest problem for stewards has been keeping order among women of a certain age who had queued all night to be in the front row for Robbie’s show.

BRENDAN FOSTER brings an end to a great broadcasting career at the weekend and calling Mo Farah to another triumph on Saturday night would be the perfect send-off. Foster targeted the championships in London — and the Farah races in particular — as his TV swansong in the knowledge that there won’t be another athletics occasion as big until Tokyo in 2020, which is in the wrong time zone to attract BBC audience peaks like the 7.5million who watched Farah’s 10,000m win.

IT IS difficult to see why athletics fans at the championships have been forced to put up with money- saving expert Martin Lewis as their trackside athletics pundit. Lewis, who has been doing a similar role at lower-profile British Athletics meetings, is a friend of BA chief executive niels de Vos. In contrast, the stadium commentary, in the hands of athletics expert and experienced broadcaster John Rawling, has been top class.