Verbruggen: Confident of timely delivery of venues

Describing the venue construction as "always the most sensitive issue," Mr. Verbruggen said: "You have seen all the misery in previous Games when venue construction is delayed for all kinds of reasons.

"I think that has been very well understood in Beijing and by your leaders because we have never had to worry about the venues to be ready in time."

Mr. Verbruggen believes that BOCOG has given significant attention to the venues' post-Games use. "We at the IOC look at (the issue) very carefully because we do not want that a city or country is stuck with a number of white elephants afterwards that are not used or that are costing a lot of money as we've had from time to time in the past."