In order to count down the final 100 days until the London Olympics are officially underway, a massive sand sculpture was constructed in anticipation of the event. Hours after its completion, the sandcastle was gone. According to the Telegraph, the 13-foot by 6.5-foot sculpture on Weymouth beach had to be demolished over health and safety concerns.
Sand sculptor Mark Anderson spent four full days working on the creation. Officials say the sandcastle needed to be guarded because it posed a threat to the safety of young children if left unattended.
“We took it down because it was constructed in a special way and we couldn’t have just left it there in case it fell on a young child,” head of the Weymouth and Portland 2012 operations team Simon Williams said. “We would have been criticized if that had been the case.”
“To keep it there until the start of the Olympics would have required additional security and presented a health and safety risk in that it was quite a big structure and it could have collapsed with a child playing on the beach near to it,” another spokesman agreed.
The obvious question here is how somebody couldn’t have foreseen these issues before they let the sculptor spend four days working on it. Surprisingly, Anderson says he was aware that his sandcastle would have to be knocked down and that it was part of the plan.
“Demolishing it was all part of the plan because there would have been health and safety issues,” he said. “People could have injured themselves on the council’s land so there would be no way we could leave something like that.”
Now that’s what I call commitment. If someone told you you could spend four days working on something but they’d have to tear it down within a few hours, would you still do it? Count me out.
