2. Tourism and the 2012 Games
The 2012 Games park near Stratford is attracting new
tourists to the area. The upgraded Greenway cycle and
walking path provides an ideal viewing point for the park
while the site remains closed to the public.
In 2011, a new initiative to bring tourists and visitors into
the area will involve a public waterbus "hop-on hop-off"
route, from Limehouse Basin to waterways near the
Olympic Park.
3. ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
The Olympic Park will incorporate 45 hectares of wildlife habitat, with a total of 525
bird boxes, and 150 bat boxes. Local waterways and riverbanks are to be enhanced as
part of the process.
Renewable energy will also feature at the Olympics. It was originally planned to
provide 20% of the energy for the Olympic Park and Village from renewable
technologies; however, this may now be as little as 9%.[ Proposals to meet the original
target included large-scale on-site wind turbines and hydroelectric generators in the
River Thames. However, these plans were scrapped for safety reasons. The focus has
since moved to installing solar panels on some buildings, and providing the
opportunity to recover energy from waste.
Food packaging at the Olympics will be made from compostable materials – like
starch and cellulose-based bioplastics – where it cannot be re-used or re-cycled. This
will include fast food wrappers, sandwich boxes and drink cartons. After they have
been used many of these materials will be suitable for anaerobic
digestion (AD), allowing them to be made into renewable energy.
5. COUNTDOWN
During the closing ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, the Olympic Flag was
formally handed over from the Mayor of Beijing to the Mayor of London. This
was followed by a section highlighting London,[107] One month later,
the Olympic and Paralympic flags were raised outside the London City Hall
Countdown clock inTrafalgar Square.
A countdown clock in Trafalgar Square was unveiled, 500 days before the
games. The same location hosted one of a number of events to mark a year
before the games.
6. SPORTS
The 2012 Summer Olympic programme features 26 sports and a total of 39 disciplines. The 2012
Paralympic Games programme has 20 sports and 21 disciplines. For the first time, women's
boxing is included in the programme, with 40 athletes competing in five different weight
classes. There is a special dispensation to allow the various shooting events to go ahead, which
would otherwise be illegal under U.K. gun law.
London's bid featured 28 sports, in line with other recent Summer Olympics, but the IOC voted
to drop baseball and softball from the 2012 Games two days after it selected London as the host
city. The IOC reinforced its decision to drop both sports during the 2006 Winter Olympics after
they lost votes for reconsideration and were scheduled for the last time at Beijing in
2008. Following the decision to drop the two sports, the IOC held a vote on whether or not to
replace them. The sports considered were karate, squash, golf, roller sports andrugby sevens.
Karate and squash were the two final nominees, but neither received enough votes to reach the
required two-thirds majority. The IOC has given the approval for the addition of golf and rugby
sevens for the 2016 games.
Even though formal demonstration sports were eliminated following the 1992 Summer
Olympics,] special tournaments for non-Olympic sports can be run during the games, such as
the Wushu tournament at the 2008 Summer Olympics. There have been campaigns to
runTwenty20 cricket, and Netballtournaments parallel with the 2012 games, but neither
campaign was successful.
7. BROADCASTING
The International Broadcast Centre in June 2011
The London 2012 Olympic Games will be the tenth Olympic Games (counting
both Summer and Winter Games) where Panasonic's digital technologies will
be used as the official recording format, dating since the Barcelona 1992
Olympic Games. The official international video will be produced and
distributed from the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) in London Olympic
Park, in 1080/50i High-Definition (HD) format.[190] Panasonic announced that
DVCPRO HD will be the official recording format for capturing the
Games. Olympic Broadcasting Services London (OBSL), the Host
Broadcaster, will use P2 HD series equipment to support the broadcast of the
competition. The cameras that will be used are the AG-HPX250, the company’s
first P2 HD handheld camcorder with AVC-Intra recording and two new
AVCCAM HD handheld camcorders, the AG-AC160 and AG-AC130, with Full
HD imagers and a new, wider 21X HD zoom lens.
According to the IOC's claim to providing over-the-air television coverage to as
broad a worldwide audience as possible, London 2012 is scheduled to be
broadcast by a number of regional broadcasters. The British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) is the home broadcaster for the Olympics and Channel the
home broadcaster for the Paralympics. The BBC aims to broadcast by various
channels all 5,000 hours of the Olympic Games.Much of the actual
broadcasting is originated by the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS). The
United States television rights currently owned by NBC account for over half
the rights revenue for the IOC.Many television broadcasters granted rights to
the games have bureaux and studios in London, but since at least the 1988
Olympic Winter Games in Calgary, rights-holder operations are hosted in the
dedicated International Broadcast Centre (IBC). London's IBC is planned to be
inside the security cordon of the Olympic Park.
8. CULTURAL OLYMPAID
The Olympic Charter, the set of rules and guidelines for the
organization of the Olympic Games and for governing the
Olympic Movement, states that"The OCOG shall organise a
programme of cultural events which must cover at least the
entire period during which the Olympic Village is open."
The Cultural Olympiad comprises many programs with over 500
events spread over four years over the whole of the United
Kingdom, and culminating in the London 2012 Festival.
9. BIDDING PROCESS
By the bid submission deadline of 15 July 2003, nine cities
had submitted bids to host the 2012 Olympics. These cities
were Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig, London, Madrid, Moscow, N
ew York City,Paris and Rio de Janeiro.
On 18 May 2004, the International Olympic
Committee (IOC), as a result of a scored technical
evaluation, reduced the number of cities to five:
London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, and Paris.
All five cities submitted their candidate file by 19 November
2004, and were visited by the IOC inspection team during
February and March 2005. The Paris bid suffered two
setbacks during the IOC inspection visit: a number of strikes
and demonstrations coinciding with the visits and a report
coming out that one of the key members of the Paris bid
team would face charges over alleged corrupt party political
finances.
10. MEDALS
First glimpse of the medals in Trafalgar Square.
A total of around 4,700 medals for the Olympic and
Paralympic Games are produced by theRoyal Mint. The
medal, designed by David Watkins, weighs 375–400g and is
7mm thick, with the sport and discipline engraved on the
rim. Following recent tradition, the front of the medal
features Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, stepping from
Parthenon. The reverse side features has the Games
logo, the River Thames, and a series of lines symbolising the
energy of the athletes.
11. INTRODUCTION
The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games
of the XXX Olympiad, will take place
in London, England, United Kingdom from 27 July to 12
August 2012.
Following a bid headed by former Olympic
champion Sebastian Coe, London was selected as the
host city on 6 July 2005 during the 117th IOC
Session in Singapore, defeating Moscow, New York
City, Madrid and Paris. London will become the first
city to officially host the modernOlympic Games three
times, having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948.
While budgetary considerations for the games have
generated some criticism, they have also been
welcomed by others as having prompted a
redevelopment of many of the areas of London in
which events are to be held – particularly themed
towards sustainability. The main focus of the games
will be a new 200 hectare Olympic Park, constructed
on an ormer industrial site at Stratford in the east of
London.[ The Games also make use of many
venues which were already in place before the bid.
12. PUBLIC TRANSPORT.
London's public transport was an element of the bid which
was scored poorly in the IOC's initial evaluation;
however, they felt that if the improvements were delivered
in time for the Games then London would cope.Transport
for London(TfL) carried out numerous improvements in
preparation for 2012, including the expansion of the London
Overground’s East LondonLine, upgrades to the Docklands
Light Railway and the North London Line, and the
introduction of a new "Javelin" high-speed rail service,using
the Hitachi Corporation’s "bullet" trains. The platforms
at Stratford International station(which are at a height
designed for Eurostar trains) will be temporarily raised to
accommodate the Javelin trains.According to network rail
an additional 4,000 train services will run during the
Games, with train operators putting on longer trains during
the day.
13. FINANCING
The costs of mounting the Games are separate from those for building the venues and
infrastructure, and redeveloping the land for the Olympic Park. While the Games are privately
funded, the venues and Park costs are met largely by public money.
On 15 March 2007, Tessa Jowell announced to the House of Commons a budget of £5.3 billion
to cover building the venues and infrastructure for the Games, at the same time announcing
the wider regeneration budget for the Lower Lea Valley budget at £1.7 billion.
On top of this, she announced various other costs including an overall additional contingency
fund of £2.7 billion, security and policing costs of £600 million, VAT of £800 million and elite
sport and Paralympic funding of nearly £400 million. According to these figures, the total for
the Games and the regeneration of the East London area, is £9.345 billion. Then Mayor Ken
Livingstone pledged the Games Organising Committee would make a profit.
The costs for staging the Games (£2 billion) are funded from the private sector by a
combination of sponsorship, merchandising, ticketing and broadcast rights. This budget is
raised and managed by the London 2012 Organising Committee. According to Games
organisers, the funding for this budget broadly breaks down as:
64% from Central Government;
23% from National Lottery
13% from the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency.
14. VOLUENTEERS.
Unpaid volunteers known as Games Makerswill perform a variety of tasks
before and during the Games.
A target of 70,000 volunteers was set as early as 2004.When recruitment took
place in 2010 over 240,000 applications were received. Sebastian Coe said in
February 2012 "Our Games Makers will contribute a total of around eight
million volunteer hours during the Games and the Games simply wouldn't
happen without them".
Uniforms worn by Games Makers were designed by Adidas.
15. Venues and infrastructure
Olympic Stadium in June 2011
The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will use a mixture of new
venues, existing and historic facilities, and temporary facilities, some of them
in well-known locations such as Hyde Park and Horse Guards Parade. Some of
the new facilities will be reused in their Olympic form, while others will be
resized or relocated.
The majority of venues have been divided into three zones within Greater
London: the Olympic Zone, the River Zone and the Central Zone. In addition
to these are those venues that, by necessity, are outside the boundaries of
Greater London, such as the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing
Academy on the Isle of Portland in Dorset which will host the sailing
events, some 125 miles (200 km) southwest of the Olympic Park. The football
tournament will be staged at several grounds around the UK. Work began on
the Park in December 2006 when a sports hall in Eton Manor was pulled
down.The athletes' village in Portland was completed in September 2011.
16. MASCOTS
The official mascots for the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games
were unveiled on 19 May 2010;[132] this marks the second time
(after Vancouver) that both Olympic and Paralympic mascots were unveiled
at the same time. Wenlock and Mandeville are animations depicting two
drops of steel from a steelworks in Bolton.[132] They are named
Wenlock, after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock, which held a
forerunner of the current Olympic Games, and Mandeville, after Stoke
Mandeville, a village in Buckinghamshire where a forerunner to
the Paralympic Gameswere first held.[132] The writer Michael
Morpurgo wrote the story concept to the mascots, and an animation was
produced;[133] it is intended that this will form part of an ongoing series
concerning the mascots in the run-up to the Games in 2012.[132] Two stories
have been created about the mascots: Out Of A Rainbow, the story of how
Wenlock and Mandeville came to be, andAdventures On A Rainbow, which
features the children from Out Of A Rainbow meeting the mascots and
trying out many different Olympic and Paralympic sports.[134]
