His Park tour included a trip to the site of the innovative temporary Basketball Arena where construction is due to start this autumn.
Luol Deng said:‘Our main goal as a Great Britain team is 2012. We're trying to take it a step at a time, a year at a time, but you can't avoid the excitement surrounding the fact the Olympics are coming to London in just a few years.
’For me, London will always be home so the chance to play in an Olympic Games in my hometown in front of my family and friends I grew up with, is something that's never far from my thoughts.’
Luol Deng was joined by Hackney 2012 Youth Ambassadors who have taken on the role of promoting sports participation among young people in Hackney – one of the five Host Boroughs around the Olympic Park.
During the Olympic Games the Basketball Arena will have 12,000 seats for the Basketball preliminaries and quarter-finals, as well as the Handball semi-finals and finals.
The Basketball finals will take place in the 20,000-seat North Greenwich Arena, which is hosting British Basketball’s first ever international tournament this weekend as a ‘warm-up’ to London 2012.
During the Paralympic Games the Basketball Arena will have a capacity of 10,000 seats for Wheelchair Basketball and Wheelchair Rugby.
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