500 days to go, and London's Olympic Park is taking shape. The velodrome is finished, they're tiling the diving pool, and the stadium seats are in and covered up to protect them from the London weather. At its heart are more than five miles of newly opened waterways. These used to be big, industrial canals, and then they fell into disrepair.
But they run almost like arteries across the whole Olympic site. The stadium there sits on an island, completely surrounded by water, and what's fantastic is to see them coming back to life. So often, water in London is used and abused, and this – it's being cherished.
When the diggers have gone, there'll be a new urban park here in Stratford – the biggest to be built in Europe for 150 years. A quarter of a million new wetland plants have gone in, and 4,000 new trees.
Vocabulary
a
a transformation = a complete change
an urban wasteland = area of land (in a city or town) which is unused, and is not
in a good condition
taking shape = here, starting to look almost complete or finished
velodrome = sports arena where cyclists compete on a circular track
tiling = here, installing tiles on the floor and sides of
at its heart = at the centre of it
waterways = here, canals or man-made channels of water, which will be
used for water sports
industrial canals = large channels of water used by businesses to transport
goods by boat or barge
arteries = here, links or connections (arteries are tubes which carry
blood from the heart to the rest of a person's body)
cherished = taken care of
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