Games Organisers Trawl Essex for Biking Site

London 2012's own venue auditors yesterday exposed significant difficulties in the search for a site close to the capital for the Olympic mountain-biking event. It emerged as the International Olympic Committee prepared to send representatives to London today to review preparations for the 2012 Games.

One of the IOC's key criteria for awarding London host-city status was that it would hold a compact Olympics, with very few venues distant from the main stadium in Stratford. But a month ago the UCI, the world cycling federation, withdrew its approvals for Weald Country Park - about 16 miles to the east - to host the mountain-biking event and the search has been on for an alternative site ever since. "We are hopeful that the event will remain in Essex," said a London 2012 spokeswoman.

A list released yesterday named 22 sites deemed capable of hosting pre-Games training camps for overseas mountain bikers but none is in Essex. The venues were among 600 sports facilities accredited by auditors working on behalf of Games organizers.

Indeed, the nearest to the Stratford stadium is 40 miles away in Sevenoaks, Kent. Locog, the London 2012 organizing committee, refused to name the sites it says it is considering for Essex.

It claimed that accredited training camps - of which even Weald is not one - had to be able to provide year-round accommodation, catering and medical facilities, saying these could be built in time for the Games at an Essex site.

Stakes high for Usmanov

Alisher Usmanov's statement last Thursday that he would not bid for Arsenal over the next six months carried some revealing riders. Although the Russian's investment vehicle, Red & White Holdings, insisted it is simply standard practice to reserve the right to bid in the event of an offer from "a third party", that caveat may disclose more about Usmanov's fears over Stan Kroenke than it seems.

The American owns 12.19% of Arsenal's shares and observers feel that he is the key to Usmanov's ultimate ambitions. If he sells out to Red & White Kroenke stands to make a minimum of £30m in clear profit. But tellingly it is understood that Usmanov believes the inscrutable Kroenke retains designs of his own on Arsenal.

It is also believed that this is what lies behind Usmanov's desire also for a "blocking stake" of 25% of the club's equity. This could prevent a so-called scheme of arrangement whereby the share-ownership structure could be altered - a move that requires the approval of 75% of the shareholders by voting rights. Moreover there was also a rider on Usmanov's bidding rights relating to the Arsenal board's "lock-down" agreement. Despite declaring itself the biggest single shareholder in Arsenal, Red & White has not been furnished with a copy of the document that prevents directors selling their equity other than to "permitted persons". Fears that such persons might include Kroenke may have further motivated his manoeuvrings last week.

Davies is back on board

Barry Davies has found a way back on to the airwaves as the "voice of the Boat Race", four years after the BBC lost the rights to cover the event following rows with organizers. Davies spent more than a decade as the corporation's Boat Race commentator but has not called the annual Oxford-Cambridge race since ITV won the rights to it in 2004. Davies was yesterday announced as the commentator for the 154th Boat Race on London's LBC radio.

One last day in the sun

Tony Spreadbury retired from officiating international rugby last October, just over a month after he refereed the Rugby World Cup opening match between France and Argentina. Spreadbury turns 46 this month but remains a high-profile official in the domestic game and was the one who took the decision to postpone last Friday night's match between Newcastle and Wasps over stadium safety fears. But, having carried the whistle in 41 senior Test matches, "Spreaders" has been coaxed out of international retirement for one match only. He insists the fact that the World Cup qualifier in question happens to be that between the Cayman Islands and Barbados is pure coincidence.