Olympics-Coe certain 2012 London Games will delivers on promises

BERLIN Oct 29 (Reuters) - The London 2012 Olympics will deliver all they promised despite the impact of the financial crisis, London Games chief Sebastian Coe said on Thursday.

Speaking ahead of Saturday's 1,000-day countdown to the Games, Coe said while preparations at all levels were on track and even ahead of schedule in some cases, organisers were well aware that time was of the essence.

The London Games will be the first summer Olympics to be staged since the worst of the economic downturn.

"We are on track, we are on budget and the venues are taking shape," Coe said in a conference call with a small group of reporters.

"I don't think that 1,000 days are anything but a blink of an eyelid. That will go very quickly but there is nothing that we should have done that we have not done.

"We are where we want to be but we have realised that the last three years are tough years of delivery."

While construction of the main venues, the athletes' village and the International Broadcast and Media Centre is ahead of or on schedule, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) is already dipping deeply into the Games contingency fund contained in the overall budget as private funding dried up earlier this year.

Analysts have also questioned whether London's ambitious legacy plans, which contributed to the city winning the bid, will be delivered in full given that organisers had to rethink their plans, scrapping some venues -- even temporary ones -- to save money.

The costs of the Olympic stadium have doubled since London's bid was announced while the British government had to bail out the village project with a cash injection.

"I'm entirely confident (of the legacy plans)," Coe said.

"We have not changed our vision because of changed circumstances in the global economy. We always said these Games would be delivered in a responsible and sustainable way.

"I am satisfied that the central commitments are being delivered."

London has so far had a successful sponsorship campaign raising some 550 million pounds ($904.4 million) already with a target of about 700 million.

"We are continuing to raise the necessary funding for the Games. We have an operating budget of about 2 billion pounds so we recognise that the amount that we could drawn down from the private sector... was ambitious and realisable."

"Everything we have done to date tells me that it is realisable," said Coe.

(Editing by John Mehaffey; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)