THE OLYMPIC Stadium has today reached its full height as the first of 14 lighting towers was lifted into place.

THE OLYMPIC Stadium has today reached its full height as the first of 14 lighting towers was lifted into place.

A 650 tonne crane has been put together in the stadium's middle to lift the 28m high towers on top of the inner ring of the stadium's cable net roof. It's one of the toughest engineering challenges on the flagship venue so far and takes the height of the stadium to 60 meters.

The towers will illuminate sporting action inside the stadium and are necessary for high definition media footage.

Olympic Delivery Authority chairman John Armitt said: "The stadium will be at the heart of the action in 2012 and its image will be beamed to billions of people across the world.

"The lifting of the towers is a significant engineering and construction challenge and has taken a huge amount of work and planning, complicated by snow, wind and rain. "We're on schedule to finish by the summer of 2011 to give a year for test events."

The cable net roof was lifted into place last year and will be covered once all the lighting towers are in place. The roof will cover two-thirds of spectators.