Athletics will be the big winner when Premier League club West Ham is handed the baton of running London’s Olympic Stadium after the 2012 Games.

The Olympic executives tasked with ensuring the £537 million stadium doesn’t become a white elephant on Friday selected West Ham as their preferred bidder over rival club Tottenham.

The decision, which is awaiting ratification by the government and London’s mayor, will prevent the city reneging on a key promise to the International Olympic Committee before the 2005 vote.

Tottenham may be the wealthier and more successful London club, but there was widespread opposition to its plans to tear down the stadium when the Olympics ended and construct a football-specific venue without a running track.

By unanimously recommending West Ham’s bid, the Olympic Park Legacy Company will ensure Britain retains a 60,000-seat facility capable of hosting major athletics events, including the world championships, after London 2012.

“The athletics stadium and the track itself was at the heart of everything we spoke about in 2005 when we made the bid,” said Denise Lewis, who won gold in the heptathlon at the 2000 Olympics. “It’s an Olympic stadium, so you think track and field athletics, and for that not to have played a part would have been unthinkable.”

The country’s main athletics venues are currently a downtrodden 15,500-seat facility in Crystal Palace, south London and the 25,000-seat Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield, northern England.

West Ham will give UK Athletics access to the Olympic Stadium 20 days each year. A 250-year sublease for UKA will match the length of the lease West Ham hopes to sign with the OPLC in the coming weeks.

“Now it is down to UKA to make the most of it,” Lewis said. “I’d like to see it as the heartbeat and the home of athletics and if we don’t fight for the sport we will lose our identity.”

Having warned that it would be “outrageous” to rip out the track, IAAF President Lamine Diack on Friday praised the legacy company board for making a “very wise decision” that lives up to London’s bid promises.

“I have always said that Britain, whose history and legendary athletes have been an inspirational example, deserves a world class athletics venue,” he said in a statement.

North London club Tottenham questioned the compatibility of staging football and athletics in the same hybrid stadium since fans are separated from the action by a running track.

West Ham is already considering installing retractable seats, but will have to provide guarantees that the track won’t eventually be ripped up if supporters complain after leaving Upton Park in 2014.

“That would be a clear danger so guarantees of that sort have been sought,” Olympics minister Hugh Robertson said. “The provision of the running track is an integral part of the ... proposal and OPLC will be seeking guarantees that that will be delivered.”

West Ham’s current ground, Upton Park, which is near to the Olympic site in east London, has a 35,000 capacity.

The Hammers, who have debts of £75 million, are also facing relegation from the Premier League this season, with Avram Grant’s side lodged to the bottom of the standings.

Downgrading the capacity from 80,000 at games time and upgrading the facilities from the Olympics mode is expected to cost £95 million, with a £40-million loan being provided by Newham Council, the local authority which bid jointly with West Ham.

“One of the criteria we were judged against was financial and obviously our finances stack up,” vice chairman Karren Brady said. “We do not aim to be relegated when we come here in 2014-15.”

As well as football and athletics, there had also been suggestions the ground could host Twenty20 cricket, American football and concerts.