Olympics lanes cause chaos for athletes

Athletes tweet their annoyance as they are stuck in traffic for hours

The Olympics madness started in London yesterday, with 40,000 people arriving at Heathrow and the opening of the new specialised lanes.

But some athletes faced long waits stuck in traffic as they made their way to the Olympic Village, near Stratford, East London.

The traffic was caused by confusion among drivers who were unsure if they could use the new lanes or not.

US 400m hurdles champion Kerron Clement was clearly unhappy with his 25 mile-long journey taking over four hours.

He tweeted his disdain to his 7,000 Twitter followers, saying 'Um, so we've been lost on the road for 4hrs. Not a good first impression London.

'Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee. Could we get to the Olympic Village please.'

London Mayor Boris Johnson tried to brush over criticism of the wayward bus, joking that it gave the American athletes a great chance to see more of London.

But Kevin Delaney, former head of traffic at the Metropolitan Police warned that the slightest problem on the capital's roads during the Games could create the 'perfect storm'.

He says: 'Unless everybody heeds the advice to not drive, there are problems. Imagine if there is a situation where we have a breakdown or a crash. The road network just would not cope with that.

'It would be like a perfect storm - the level of congestion that you would normally get would be magnified.

'It is because London's road network actually operates so efficiently that if anything goes wrong it goes badly wrong.'

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