AP's remit included covering the course for the TfL London Stage of the Tour, and also took in the Newham Waterfront Festival, organised by Newham Council and sponsored by ExCel London. Set up to coincide with the tour, the Festival was hosted in Royal Victoria Square and featured international street theatre, a wide variety of foods and live music, culminating in a spectacular fireworks display.
With around 15,000 spectators for the race itself (which was won by Andre Greipel from Team HTC - Columbia, with the overall Tour being won by Swizterland's Michael Albasini) and a total of 25,000 throughout the day, this was a slightly less resource intensive event than the previous year's, which was hosted in central London. However, AP's pre-planning and on-site management were still brought to the fore.
"Our main role was to ensure that the course was kept clear of both people and debris, since the cyclists travel at speed," explains Freddie Botha who was in charge of the event for AP, with colleague Sammie Martins running crowd management for the Festival. "We managed both road closures in the area and crossing points for pedestrians, who were able to cross the 'track' between laps. We implemented mini rolling road closures along the route, and when the last police car, taking up the rear of the race, went past we opened up the roads for traffic again."
(Jim Evans)
