Head of the London 2012 Coordination Commission, Oswald (pictured above) was appointed to oversee the city's preparations and says Rio will have a hard act to follow.

"London is very good model," he said here.

"When you start from scratch you have everything on paper.

"[But] one of the planks of its preparation is that they started right away after being awarded the Games and didn't lose time.

"We had no issues with construction being behind the clock.

"Seven years seems to be a long time but in fact it is very short."

Oswald has compared the spirit and atmosphere of London 2012 to the Winter Games of Lillehammer in 1994 in terms of knowledge of sport and support for other athletes.

A total of 30 miles of Games Lanes were introduced as part of the 109-mile Olympic Route Network (ORN) around London

Even the transport infrastructure in London, such a worry before the Games, has proved a success, said Oswald.

"There were some issues with transport but these were addressed very quickly and improvements made by LOCOG [London 2012] in the early days," he said.

"We had some worries, that's true, with half a million more people in the city.

"But we haven't had the traffic jams we feared.

"We expected more difficulties."

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