Britain's credibility would be undermined if the running track is removed from the main stadium after the 2012 London Olympics, the country's senior IOC member said.
Craig Reedie, an executive board member of the International Olympic Committee, told The Associated Press that ripping up the track and tearing down the stadium - as proposed by the Tottenham soccer club - would betray a promise to leave a post-games legacy for the sport.
''It would be regretful in the extreme,'' said Reedie, who was a key figure in London's winning bid for the games and is the former chairman of the British Olympic Association. ''We would lose all credibility.''
Reedie is one of the most senior and influential figures to speak out in the dispute over the future of London's $853 million Olympic Stadium.
Tottenham is competing against fellow Premier League club West Ham to become the stadium tenant after 2012. The Olympic Park Legacy Company is expected to choose a preferred bidder by the end of the month.
West Ham, in collaboration with the local Newham Council, proposes converting the 80,000-seat stadium into a 60,000-capacity arena shared by soccer and track and field.
''It seems to be an ideal use of a converted stadium in the Olympic Park,'' Reedie said.
Tottenham, on the other hand, would demolish most of the stadium and build a new arena on the site without a track. Spurs officials say fans would be closer to the action.
To make up for removing the Olympic track, Tottenham has offered to upgrade south London's crumbling Crystal Palace facility.
''If we have one tenant of a major football club and it is going to keep the athletics track, that is my chosen option,'' Reedie said. ''It was sport that generated the Olympic Park in the first place.''
Reedie was part of the London bid delegation that promised a track legacy for the stadium when the capital won the IOC vote in Singapore in 2005.
He said reneging on that pledge would undo the goodwill engendered by London following previous controversies over Wembley Stadium and a scrapped athletics stadium at Picketts Lock.
''If you have made mistakes and you then recover from that, you better not make them again,'' Reedie said. ''It seems to me at the moment this argument over who would become a tenant in the Olympic Stadium is in danger of repeating all of the previous mistakes.''
Doing away with the Olympic track would jeopardize any future bids for European or world championships, he said.
''The only correct long-term usage is to have a stadium which can be used as the center of future bids for major sports events, probably concentrating on what is the Olympic Games' leading sport,'' Reedie said.
Backers of the Tottenham bid claim that a running track is incompatible with a soccer stadium. Reedie disputed that, noting that the Lazio and Roma soccer clubs both use the Olympic Stadium in Rome that retains the track from the 1960 Games.
Last week, IOC President Jacques Rogge said he favored a solution with a running track but stressed the IOC would not intervene in the dispute.
