"Actually," says Philip Sparkes, Maltbury's MD "this description tells only a small part of the story of Maltbury's involvement in the Games. We started with one contract and ended up supplying goods or services to half of the Olympic sports!"
Maltbury's story began with winning the tender for the contract to supply the stage and back wall for the Weightlifting competition. There was no technical specification for the platform so they first had to design the platform that LOCOG and the Olympic Weightlifting team wanted and then prove that they could deliver it. The same applied to the back wall, which gradually changed from a simple series of tall flats into a monolithic structure of almost 200m2. This was designed, built and installed by Maltbury's crew under the guidance of Technical Manager Jason Tucker and was described as a triumph on every level.
Maltbury also then won the contract to supply all the tiers for dignitaries and judges in the five arenas at ExCeL. This contract suited their Metrodeck system perfectly and also included 200 bespoke desks. Making the most of the modularity of the staging system, with every change of sport the tier structures needed to be moved and reconfigured. Maltbury achieved this in all five arenas throughout the Olympics and Paralympics without a hitch.
In early July it was discovered that a whole series of structures needed to be rebuilt in a hurry and it was to Maltbury that LOCOG turned. The media tribunes are a series of larger tiers built on top of the audience tiers, complete with desks and power, so the press can report effectively from the arenas themselves. In a matter of days (and nights) Maltbury had rebuilt these in four of the arenas, using some 7km of 4"x2" timber and 250no sheets of 18mm MDF. So impressed was Games architect by what they had done that he insisted they also do the same at Wembley Stadium, Wembley Arena and Lords, taking Maltbury's summer timetable up to the weekend before the opening ceremony.
As Philip Sparkes explained ,"As a supplier of modular staging, we like to think we are as versatile as our products. In many ways the Olympic Games gave us the perfect opportunity to showcase this. Ultimately, however, it is about the quality of the work we did and nothing bears witness to that better than this comment from Matt Curtain, Olympic Weightlifting & Paralympic Powerlifting Manager, who wrote: "1560 lifts were attempted on the podium - with no issues regarding the integrity, stability and/or structure recorded....your solution was faultless."
(Jim Evans)
