Bowie, who died in January 2016 at the age of 69, is widely regarded as a musical innovator and cultural icon. His career spanned five decades and had a major influence on the contemporary arts.

A chameleonic figure, Bowie periodically reinvented himself, creating on-stage personas such as Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke. The ability to shift his identity so successfully, which helped cement Bowie’s reputation as an innovative and uncompromising artist, is perhaps something that the owners of the London Stadium which dominates the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park need to think about.

More than a decade after the Stadium in London hosted one of the most memorable athletics meetings in history, where Jamaica’s Usain Bolt won both the 100 and 200 metres for a second consecutive Olympics, Britain’s Mo Farah pulled off an unexpected double of his own in the 5,000m and 10,000m and Jessica Ennis sent the fanatical home crowd into raptures with her victory on “Super Saturday”, the time has come to re-evaluate its future.

As an athletics fan all my life - my earliest memory was watching Finland’s Lasse Viren winning the gold medal in the 10,000m at Munich 1972 after falling over - I would love it if the sport were a big enough attraction to fill an arena the size of the London Stadium on a regular basis.

But as a former athletics correspondent of The Guardian, who spent 20-years travelling the world covering the sport, I know that only the very biggest events, like the Olympics and World Championships, are a big enough draw to sell-out major stadiums.

The London Stadium’s anchor tenant, Premier League club West Ham United, has been lobbying to make the ground more conducive to watching football pretty much since they moved in there in 2016 after striking a 99-year lease.

I had my first experience of watching football there last November when I cheered my club Leicester City on as they beat the home side 2-0 - as it turned out, pretty much the last match they have won this season, but I digress…

I have had worst experiences, but the distance from the stands to the pitch certainly meant that the intensity at other grounds which is what makes the Premier League such a compelling spectator experience was sorely lacking.

Changes have been made to the stands behind both goals to square them off in line with more traditional stadia in England. Other developments are also planned to help make the Stadium more of a football-friendly experience for the fans watching games there, but ultimately the only way the major issues will be resolved if is an agreement with the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), the publicly funded company set up to manage the legacy of the 2012 Olympics, can be reached for West Ham to take full control of the Stadium.

UK Athletics are in talks about receiving a one-off payment to step away from a 50-year deal to host events once a year for the period of a month in the publicly owned Stadium. There is no deal close yet, but I have been told that Britain’s cash-strapped national athletics governing body would probably be prepared to conclude negotiations at around £15 million ($19 million/€17 million), which is about the going rate for a third choice left-back in the Premier League.

As part of the initial deal, the Hammers paid £15 million towards the overall conversion of the stadium into a dual-use arena, plus a basic inflation-linked rent of £2.5 million ($3.1 million/€2.9 million) per year. It was called the "deal of the century" when it was first announced.

Lyn Garner, chief executive of the LLDC, which partly owns the ground, claimed in 2018 that West Ham’s rent "does not cover the cost" of staging matches at the venue and that "a lack of commercialisation" means the organisation faces "losses for the next 97 years".

The LLDC has since admitted that the London Stadium will remain a burden on taxpayers, even if a naming rights deal for the venue is signed and will continue to operate at a deficit.

Last year, the LLDC reached a financial compromise with UK Athletics for the Diamond League event to be staged at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium, redeveloped at the cost of £72 million ($90 million/€82 million) in time for the 2022 Commonwealth Games, so they did not have to foot the £3 million ($3.7 million/€3.4 million) it costs to convert the London Stadium into athletics mode.

LLDC subsidiary E20 Stadium Group, which operates the London Stadium, made a £31.1 million ($38.8 million/€35.4 million) loss in the year ending March 31, 2022. Gartner added that a naming rights agreement would still leave an annual operations loss of £8 million ($10 million/€9.1 million) to £10 million ($12.5 million/€11.4 million) for the venue.

Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, who took a 27 per cent stake in West Ham in November 2021 and is consistently linked with complete a full takeover of the club, is also believed to be in favour of gaining full control of the Stadium and repurposing it as a state-of-the-art modern Premier League football ground.

So, it is clear that it is in everyone’s interests for a deal to be struck sooner rather than later.

Any major changes will reopen the debate about the legacy of London 2012 and be fiercely resisted by former chairman Sebastian Coe, now President of World Athletics.

For now, though, preparations are continuing for this year’s Anniversary Games event at the London Stadium on July 23, its first athletics meeting there since 2019. 

So far, about 25,000 tickets have been sold with UK Athletics officials optimistic of a crowd of more than 40,000, which will make it the biggest attended meeting this year on the annual World Athletics Diamond League tour.

Athletics fans should probably enjoy the event, as there may not be many more opportunities to see it in a Stadium which will always have a special place in the sport’s history and live in the memory long after it is changed beyond recognition. 

They were all Heroes, as Bowie once so brilliantly song, whatever happens in the future.