Another new sports venue built for the London Games was given its first full run-out on Wednesday with the 2012 Olympic Handball Arena hosting an international invitational tournament.

The 6,500-seater copper-clad venue on the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, which was completed in May, is destined to hold the early handball rounds, fencing in the modern pentathlon and goalball in the Paralympics.

The London Handball Cup features top 20 women's sides China, Poland, Austria, Slovakia and Angola, plus the hosts Great Britain, who will compete at the Olympics for the first time.

The five-day contest is being used as a warm-up for the 2011 women's World Championship. China and African champions Angola have qualified for the tournament in Brazil next month.

But the event is also a chance for the organisers to test out their new facility, the competition equipment, scoreboards, staff and officials before it is used for the Olympics.

"Running a test event in the Handball Arena is not only vital for us in terms of testing the venue and our operational readiness, it is also a chance for local people to witness world class sport in an Olympic venue," Debbie Jevans, director of sport for the London Games organisers.

"The Handball Arena is an amazing facility which will be used as a multi-sports venue after the Games. It is exciting to see it being tried out competitively for the first time."

Tickets have been given away to local schools.

The STG43 million ($A68.73 million), completed in May, features a retractable lower tier and 88 sun-pipes in the ceiling to feed natural light inside.

The copper cladding is made mostly from recycled scraps and will develop a rich colour as it ages.

Spectators enter at the concourse level, which is glazed, allowing visitors to the Olympic Park to watch the action inside.

A series of test events are being held at Olympic venues in the run-up to the Games.

On Thursday, the ExCeL exhibition centre in east London's Docklands gets its turn, hosting table tennis and boxing events, with judo, taekwando, weightlifting, wrestling and fencing to follow in the coming weeks.

AFP