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The 250 metre long and 40m wide bridge, made with 1,700 tonnes of steel, will form the roof of the Aquatics Centre training pool and be the main pedestrian access into the Olympic Park used by up to 200,000 people every day during the Games.

The new images also show the last of five new bridges into the Olympic Stadium site being lifted into place.
 
Construction work is now underway on 21 of 30 new bridges that will cross waterways, roads and rivers to create a connected, open and accessible Olympic Park for the Games and legacy.
 
Fourteen steel beams, up to 60m long and weighing 75 tonnes each have been produced in Scunthorpe, fabricated in Bolton and lifted into place to form the first section of the main land bridge into the Olympic Park.
 
In total 6000 tonnes of steel supplied from across the UK is being utilised to join-up up the previously disconnected Olympic Park.
 
ODA Chairman John Armitt said: "Seeing the bridge that will form the main ‘Gateway to the Games’ taking shape is a significant milestone and gives us an exciting glimpse of the route hundreds of thousands of spectators will take into the Olympic Park in 2012.

"Lifting the final new link into the Olympic Stadium site is also an important step and follows the good progress we are making on bridges across the site to create the building blocks for an open and accessible Olympic Park in 2012 and beyond.

"Connecting the parklands, legacy venues and new neighbourhoods that will be built around the Olympic Park are an important part of regenerating this part of East London."
 
The huge land bridge that forms the main pedestrian entrance to the Olympic Park leads from the Stratford City development across the Aquatics Centre, forming the roof of the training pool, and towards the Olympic Stadium.

Around 1,000m cubic metres of concrete has been poured to create five sets of bridge supports, in the last few weeks seven pairs of steel beams have been lifted into place to form the first section of the bridge spanning railway lines and roadways.

Work is now currently underway on the section of bridge that will form the form of the Aquatics Centre training pool and create a public plaza the size of Piccadilly circus in legacy.

The land bridge is on track to be complete before summer 2010.
 
Around the Olympic Stadium site, which is being built on a compact island surrounded by water on three sides, the last of five new bridges has now been lifted into place.

The final bridge completes a network of essential new links to join the Stadium with the rest of the Olympic Park site for Games time and in legacy.

The final bridge spans 43 metres across the City Mill River to create an 11 metre-wide pedestrian link into the eastern side of the Olympic Stadium and joins the other new bridges which link into the northern and western sides of the Stadium.


Related stories
September 2009: Railway depot cleared to make way for bridge in Olympic Park