Animal rights campaign group Speak targets Mace, a member of the Olympic delivery team, after claims it built the Oxford animal research lab

The London 2012 Olympic site emerged as a potential target for animal rights action today as extremists claimed that Mace, part of the Olympic delivery team, built the controversial animal research laboratory in Oxford.

Animal rights campaigner Speak issued a statement naming Mace as a “key company” involved in the lab project, according to a report in today’s Guardian.

Speak said that Mace’s involvement in the 2012 Games gave it a unique opportunity to take their campaign against the Oxford vivisection laboratory forward.

Work on the lab stopped in 2004 after the main contractor Montpellier pulled out of the project after it was subjected to threats, intimidation and arson attacks by animal rights protestors.

Work started again last December when another contractor, whose identity has always been kept secret, took over the project.

Mace has denied that it is working on the Oxford laboratory. It admitted that it was involved in 2004 but said that it was no longer involved.

The Guardian said that Speak has rejected the denials and will continue with its campaign. The Olympic Delivery Authority told the Guardian that it had not been contacted by Speak and that as far as it was aware Mace was not involved in the laboratory.