The 44-year-old former sprinter from Namibia, who won four Olympic silver medals in his career, will officially step down as IOC Athletes' Commission chairman at the end of London 2012 with the position to be taken by Germany's Claudia Bokel.

But in his last days in the role, Fredericks has heaped praise on London, claiming that athletes are very much enjoying their stay in the Olympic Village (pictured top) in Stratford.

"I was involved with London since 2005 during the Evaluation Commission and then obviously I became part of the Coordination Commission," he said at a press conference here.

"I have seen this baby grow over the last seven years to what we have today.

"It has always been athlete-centred and I am happy.

"I can say that I was very impressed when I saw the village the first time.

"In my experience, this is the best village I have seen.

"The athletes are happy and they will be happy here for the duration of the time that they are here.

"We have not heard much, many problems from the athletes' view.

Frankie Fredericks has been enormously impressed with the Olympic Village

"From the athletes' perspective, I am happy that we have the friends and family ticketing programme here in London.

"It is the first time this has been done.

"It is nice that now, finally, athletes know that their friends and family can eventually come to the Games and watch them.

"Before London that was not possible and now it is possible, and I can say that we have worked hard to find a great solution to have these friends and family tickets.

"The Opening Ceremony, what can I say?

"Wow.

"That is all I can say from the athletes' perspective."

Fredericks also commended the atmosphere at the venues, despite the fact that there has been criticism of empty seats at some of them.

"I was at the venue [North Greenwich Arena] for gymnastics, and the atmosphere was great," he said.

"I think it was a wonderful atmosphere.

Empty seats can be seen at the gymnastics at North Greenwich Arena

"Athletes have trained for four years to come and have this chance and I don't think that they look to see whether there are 200 chairs empty or four chairs empty.

"They are there to give their best and I think the British crowd yesterday was amazing.

"I think the atmosphere was incredible and the athletes could feel the hum of the fans within the arena.

"This is what athletes are concentrating on and to see their national flags in there and you could see every national flag of every team competing.

"When the Brazilian is competing, when the Israeli is competing, whether it is the US team, you could see flags from everyone.

"That is the type of thing that athletes want to see and hear because the people were really enthusiastic."

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