2012 Summer Olympics

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Games of the XXX Olympiad
"Our Games will be for everyone." "Our emblem is simple, distinct, bold and buzzing with energy. Its form is inclusive yet consistent and has incredible flexibility to encourage access and participation. It can communicate with anyone from commercial organisations to kids playing sport."
Host city	London, United Kingdom
Nations participating	204 (initial estimates by LOCOG)
Athletes participating	10,250 (approximate)
Events	300 in 26 sports
Opening ceremony	July 27
Closing ceremony	August 12
Stadium	Olympic Stadium

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad, are due to be held in London from 27 July to 12 August 2012, followed by the 2012 Paralympic Games from 29 August to 9 September. London will become the first city to host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948 (also see London Olympics).

The bidding process

Main article: 2012 Summer Olympics bids

Logo used for the 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, New York, 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. By 19 November 2004 all five candidate cities had submitted their candidate file to the International Olympic Committee. The IOC inspection team visited the five candidate cities during February and March of 2005. The Paris bid suffered two set-backs during the IOC inspection visit: a number of strikes and demonstrations coinciding with the visits and a report coming out that Guy Drut, one of the key members of the Paris bid team and IOC member, would face charges over alleged corrupt political party finances.^[1] On 6 June 2005 the International Olympic Committee released its evaluation reports for the five candidate cities. Although these reports did not contain any scores or rankings, the evaluation report for Paris was considered the most positive, now followed closely by London which had narrowed down most of the gap observed by the initial evaluation in 2004 regarding Paris. Also New York and Madrid obtained very positive evaluation reports.^[2] Throughout the process and up to the vote at the 117th IOC Session, Paris was widely seen as the favourite to win the nomination, particularly as this was its third bid in recent history. Originally London was seen lagging Paris by considerable margin, however this started to improve with the appointment of Sebastian Coe as new head of London 2012 on 19 May 2004. In late August 2004 some reports started emerging predicting a London and Paris tie in the 2012 bid.^[3] In the final run-up to the 117th IOC Session, London and Paris appeared to be increasingly in a neck-to-neck race. On 1 July 2005 Jacques Rogge, when asked who the winner would be, told the assembled press: "I cannot predict it since I don't know how the IOC members will vote. But my gut feeling tells me that it will be very close. Perhaps it will come down to a difference of say ten votes, or maybe less". On 6 July 2005, the final selection was announced at the Raffles City Convention Centre in Singapore, where the 117th IOC Session was held. Here British Prime Minister Tony Blair was the only leader of the five candidate cities' countries to make a personal lobby (he had also been the only one to attend the 2004 Olympics).^[4] Moscow was the first city to be eliminated, followed by New York and Madrid. The final two cities left in contention were London and Paris. At the end of the fourth round of voting, London won the right to host the 2012 Games with 54 votes, defeating Paris's 50. Various French publications blamed the Paris loss on French President Jacques Chirac's statements before the vote that "We can't trust people [the British] who have such bad food. After Finland, it's the country with the worst food."^[5] Two current members of the International Olympic Committee are from Finland. Several other news sources cited Bertrand Delanoë's complaint regarding Tony Blair's secret late night meetings with numerous (African) IOC representatives as having a more significant impact on final vote.^[6] When reporting London's win, many British news programmes showed the footage of London's win being announced in Paris, where a large crowd had gathered expecting a French win. However, the celebrations in London were overshadowed when London's transport system was attacked less than 24 hours after the announcement. In December 2005 it was alleged by Alex Gilady, a senior IOC official, that London had only won the right to host the Olympics because of a voting error. A London 2012 spokesman dismissed this, saying "At the end of the day, it was a secret ballot. This is the opinion of one individual. The result is what matters and we are not going to be drawn into speculation."^[7]

2012 Summer Olympics bidding results
City	NOC	R1	R2	R3	R4
London	United Kingdom	22	27	39	54
Paris	France	21	25	33	50
Madrid	Spain	20	32	31	-
New York City	United States	19	16	-	-
Moscow	Russia	15	-	-	-

Olympic development and preparation

Developments after the bid

Main article: 2012 Summer Olympic development

The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games was created to oversee the development of the Games after the success of the bid, and held their first board meeting on 7 October 2005. The committee, chaired by Lord Coe, are in charge of implementing the games, while the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) is in charge of the construction of the venues and infrastructure. The Government Olympic Executive (GOE), a unit within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is the lead Government body for coordinating the London 2012 Olympics. The GOE reports through the DCMS Permanent Secretary to the Minister for the Olympics, Paralympics and London, Tessa Jowell. Various aspects of the Games have developed since the time of the initial bid.

Venues and infrastructure

Main article: 2012 Summer Olympic venues

The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games plan to 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. In the wake of the problems that plagued the Millennium Dome, the intention is that there would be no white elephants after the Games. Some of the new facilities would be reused in their Olympic form, while others, including the recently announced 80,000 seater main stadium^[8], would be reduced in size and several would be relocated elsewhere in the UK. The plans are part of the regeneration of Stratford in east London which will be the site of the Olympic Park, and of the neighbouring Lower Lea Valley. However, this may require the compulsory purchase of some business properties, which would be demolished to make way for Olympic venues and infrastructure improvements. This has caused controversy, with some of the affected proprietors claiming that the compensation offered is inadequate. In addition, concerns about the development's potential impact on the future of the century-old Manor Garden Allotments have inspired a community campaign, and the demolition of the Clays Lane housing estate was strongly opposed by tenants. 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) and various stadia across the UK, such as the Cardiff $1.4billion International sports village currently in construction.

Public transport

Public transport, an aspect of the bid which scored poorly in the IOC's initial evaluation, needs to see numerous improvements, including the expansion of the London Underground's East London Line, upgrades to the Docklands Light Railway and the North London Line, and the new "Javelin" high-speed rail service, using Hitachi 'bullet' trains. They also plan to have 80% of athletes travel less than 20 minutes to their event. The Park would be served by 10 separate railway lines with a combined capacity of 240,000 passengers per hour. Park and ride schemes also feature amongst the many plans aimed at reducing traffic levels during the games. Concerns have been expressed at the logistics of spectators travelling to the venues outside London. In particular, the sailing events on Portland are in an area with no direct motorway connection, and with local roads that are heavily congested by existing tourist traffic in the summer. There is also only limited scope for extra services on the South Western Main Line beyond Southampton, without new infrastructure. Games organisers say that having analysed past Games sailing events, they would expect fewer spectators than have attended recent events such as the Carnival and Tall Ships Race.

Financing

The costs of mounting the Games are separate to 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. Mayor Ken Livingstone pledged the Games Organising Committee would make a profit.^[9] 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:

• 63% from Central Government;
• 23% from National Lottery
• 13% from the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency

On August 18, 2007 The Belfast Telegraph reported that the right to stage the Olympic Games becoming more muted as realisation dawns on the public of the enormous costs involved in creating facilities for the athletes.^[10] Grassroot sport cuts will fund Olympics, government figures suggested on August 19 2007.^[11] On December 10, 2007 Tessa Jowell announced confirmation of the budget announced earlier in 2007. In June 2007, the Ministerial Funders’ Group - established to manage the allocation of contingency to the ODA within the overall budget - met and agreed a first allocation of contingency to the ODA, being £360m out of the £500m of initial contingency announced in March, to enable the ODA to manage early cost pressures. Following its second meeting on 26 November 2007, the Funders’ Group has now agreed a baseline budget and scope proposed by the ODA. The total budgeted base cost to be met by the public sector funding package remains at £6.090bn including tax and excluding general programme contingency as announced in March. This includes the allocation to the ODA of the remaining £140m from the initial £500m contingency announced in March. ^[12]

Partners

To help fund the cost of the games the London Olympic organisers have agreed partnership deals with major companies. "Tier One" partners already announced include Lloyds TSB, EDF Energy and adidas — who announced the deal on the popular website YouTube.^[13]

Ticketing

Organisers estimate that some eight million tickets would be available for the Olympic Games, and 1.6 million tickets for the Paralympic Games. They will be going on sale in 2011, with at least 50% of these priced under £20. To reduce traffic, ticketholders would be entitled to free use of London's public transportation network on the day of the event.^[14] It is estimated that 82% of available Olympic tickets and 63% of Paralympic tickets will be sold. There will also be free events: for example, the marathon and road cycling.

Scheduling controversy

Some representatives of Muslim countries have complained that the month of Ramadan, which will occur from 21 July to 20 August in 2012, and the 2012 Games will run concurrently. During Ramadan, Muslims are to fast from sunrise to sunset, which may put Muslim athletes at a disadvantage during the Games. Some Muslims have called for the Olympics to be rescheduled outside this period.^[15]

Logo

The paralympics logo and the different official colour combinations for the main logo

There have been two London 2012 logos: one for the bidding process created by Kino Design and a second as the brand for the Games themselves. The latter, designed by Wolff Olins, was unveiled on 4 June 2007 and cost £400,000.^[16] This new logo is a stylised representation of the number 2012, with the Olympic Rings embedded within the zero.^[17] The logo is available in a number of colours, and for the first time, the same logo is to be used for both the Olympic and Paralympic games.^[18] London 2012 has stated that the new logo is aimed at reaching young people. Sebastian Coe stated that it builds upon everything that the organising committee has said "about reaching out and engaging young people, which is where our challenge is over the next five years". One observer, a managing director of an advertising agency, noted that the logo bore a strong resemblance to the logo for children's television programme Tiswas, commenting that appealing to young people is difficult, and that they will see right through attempts to patronise them.^[19] Early public reaction to the logo, as measured by a poll on the BBC website, was largely negative: more than 80% of votes gave the logo the lowest possible rating.^[20] Several newspapers have run their own logo competitions, displaying alternative submissions from their readers. The Sun displayed a design by a macaque monkey.^[21]. It was widely commented that the logo resembles an image of the cartoon character Lisa Simpson performing fellatio^[22] and others have complained that it looks like a distorted Swastika.^[23] One website ran an obvious spoof that became widely circulated on the net saying that remaining members of the Waffen SS had sued the London games for logo-theft.^[24] A segment of animated footage released at the same time as the logo was reported to trigger seizures in a small number of people with photosensitive epilepsy. The charity Epilepsy Action received telephone calls from people who had had seizures after watching the sequence on TV. In response, a short segment was removed from the London 2012 website.^[25] Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, said that the company who designed the film should not be paid a penny for what he called a "catastrophic mistake".^[26]

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. 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 their decision to drop both sports during the Turin Games after they lost votes for reconsideration. They will be Olympic sports for the last time at Beijing in 2008. The Guardian newspaper reported on 28 October 2005 that open-air swimming disciplines will be added to the Beijing and London Olympic schedules. The paper also reported that women's boxing may be added to London; the IOC confirmed that women's boxing would not be included in Beijing because they "did not feel it merited inclusion in 2008".^[27]

• Aquatics (disciplines: diving, swimming, synchronised swimming, marathon swimming and water polo)
• Archery
• Athletics (track and field)
• Badminton
• Basketball
• Boxing
• Canoe/kayak (disciplines: canoe/kayak flatwater and canoe/kayak slalom)
• Cycling (disciplines: road cycling, track cycling, mountain bike, Skateboarding^[28] and BMX racing)
• Equestrianism (Eventing, Dressage, Jumping)
• Fencing
• Football (soccer)
• Gymnastics (disciplines: artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and trampolining)
• Handball
• Field hockey
• Judo
• Modern pentathlon
• Rowing
• Sailing
• Shooting
• Table tennis
• Taekwondo
• Tennis
• Triathlon
• Volleyball (Indoor and Beach)
• Weightlifting
• Wrestling (Graeco-Roman and Freestyle)

Broadcasting

Continuing the IOC's commitment 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. Though reduced dramatically since 1980, the United States television rights currently owned by NBC still 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 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, 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. As rights for the 2012 games have been packaged with those for the 2010 Winter Olympics, broadcasters will be largely identical for both events. Confirmed broadcasters include:

• In Canada, a consortium of CTVglobemedia and Rogers Media properties.
• In Europe (excluding RAI in Italy), members of the European Broadcasting Union.^[29]
• In the United Kingdom the BBC will be sole broadcaster of the games.^[30]
• In Brazil, TV Record had been awarded the broadcasting rights.^[31]
• In the United States, NBC Universal, including NBC and various cable properties. Some online webcasts may also be available. As with the 2008 Summer Olympics, it is likely that some events will be scheduled so that they air in timeslots favourable to NBC, which pays the highest TV rights fee of any broadcaster in the world.
• In Mexico, the two major national networks Televisa and TV Azteca will broadcast the games.
• In Australia, the Nine Network in joint partnership with subscription television partner Foxtel according to the IOC "will deliver the most comprehensive coverage of the Olympics ever seen on free-to-air and subscription television in Australia".

See also

• "Fear Her", a 2006 episode of Doctor Who set during the games.
• Dream Number
• "Go for Gold" 2012 Olympic scratchcards
• 2012 Summer Paralympics
• Ancient Olympic Games
• London Borough of Newham, where some of the events will take place.
• London Borough of Waltham Forest, where some of the events will take place.
• Department for Culture, Media and Sport
• London Development Agency
• Greater London Authority
• Thames Gateway
• United Kingdom national football team, proposed for these Games

References

• BBC (2005). Focus on London's Olympic Plans. Retrieved July 7 2005

External links

Wikinews has related news:

• London to host 2012 Olympic Games
• Olympics organisers insist London win in 2012 ballot was fair

• London 2012 Official Homepage
• London 2012 Detailed Update
• Work in Progress:Official blog of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
• London 2012 Flickr group: Photography from olympic park, and bid
• Local view of the Olympics from host borough the London Borough of Newham
• Official Olympics Website announces London as host
• Video of announcement from Official Olympics Website (WMV format)
• BBC: London beats Paris to 2012 Games
• Commentary on 2012 Olympic Park
• BBC: Reactions to the announcement of the host city of the 2012 Olympic Games
• BBC: Coverage of the announcement.