Olympic flame which will be used for the London 2012 torch relay has been lit during a ceremony in Olympia, Greece. The flame was kindled by a “high priestess” who captured the morning sun’s rays in a parabolic mirror. The ceremony came amid political and economic turmoil in Greece, the home of the Ancient Olympics, where a week-long leg of the relay will be held. The flame flie…
he torch on British soil. After criss-crossing every region of the UK, the flame will be used to light the cauldron in Stratford’s Olympic Stadium at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on 27 July. At Thursday’s handover ceremony, crowds in the stadium stood beneath multi-colored umbrellas as the national anthems of the UK and Greece were sung by a British school choir and a Gree…
A torchbearer has proposed to his eight-month pregnant girlfriend during day 31 of the Olympic torch relay from Middlesbrough to Hull. David State, 25, from Redcar, who works with the Scout movement and raises money for charity, knelt as he asked Christine Langham, 27, to marry him. She accepted and David State then had to carry on his stint in Loftus, Teesside. He described the moment as “…
…the roof of the North Greenwich Arena. Pop star Dizzee Rascal and footballer Fabrice Muamba, who suffered a cardiac arrest during an FA Cup match in March, will also carry the flame. Saturday’s 36-mile relay is the first full day in London. Highlights will include visits to the Cutty Sark and the 2012 Games Equestrian Arena in Greenwich. The day will begin at Greenwich Park at 07:22 BST and…
A ceremonial cauldron has been lit in London’s Trafalgar Square to launch the Paralympic torch relay. Claire Lomas, who was paralyzed in a horse riding accident, lit the cauldron from the English national flame kindled on Scafell Pike. British Prime Minister David Cameron, London Mayor Boris Johnson and London 2012 chairman Lord Sebastian Coe attended the ceremony. The relay travels from St…
Barber Osgerby, the British creative team behind the London Olympic torch, has won the prestigious Design of the Year award 2012. The aluminum torch is perforated with 8,000 holes, each representing one of the torchbearers. The winner was chosen from 89 entries and was presented at an awards ceremony at London’s Design Museum, which organizes the annual event. Another Olympic design triumph…
ald the start of the 2012 Games In Trafalgar Square later, former boxer Michael Watson, wheelchair racer Dame Tanni Grey Thompson and Paralympic swimmer Chris Holmes will carry the flame. About 3,000 invited guests, including Paralympians, representatives from disability groups and local residents, attended Tuesday evening’s ceremony at Stoke Mandeville Stadium. Some 150 local residen…
…for our country”. “Seven years of waiting, planning, building, dreaming, are almost over – tomorrow, the curtain comes up, the spectators arrive, and the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012 can officially begin.” David Cameron also met the Republican candidate for the US presidency, Mitt Romney, during his campaigning and fundraising visit to London. Mitt Romney had earlier e…
Volodymyr Gerashchenko, a senior Ukrainian Olympic official, has been suspended after a BBC investigation showed he was willing to unofficially sell 2012 tickets for cash. Volodymyr Gerashchenko, of Ukraine’s National Olympic Committee (NOC), told a reporter posing as a UK tout he would have up to 100 tickets to sell. It is a criminal offence, punishable by fines of up to £20,000 ($32,000),…
Jerri Peterson from Atlanta in the US, who got a new tattoo to celebrate her role in the Olympic torch relay, was shocked to discover it had been spelt incorrectly. Jerri Peterson carried the torch through Derby on 30 June after being nominated by the hotel chain she worked for. When she arrived back in the US, she decided to spend $10 on a tattoo to mark the occasion. It was only hours later she…
hree minutes for the first time since King George VI’s funeral. Lord’s cricket ground has turned away spectators trying to get in to watch archery amid confusion over ticketing. The London 2012 website advertised the event’s preliminary rounds as “unticketed”, which some members of the public interpreted as open to the public. But Olympic organizer LOCOG said it had n…
…m’s training camp • On Tuesday, Heathrow is set for its busiest day for Olympics so far as it prepares to handle about 217,000 passengers, including some 1,200 athletes and coaches and more than 3,000 other Games-related arrivals • Motorists have faced long queues on routes where pre-Olympics modifications have been made to road layouts • And the Olympic torch is travelling from Kingston, in…
The biggest McDonald’s restaurant on the planet has been built in London, right in the middle of the Olympic park. The vast two-storey restaurant will serve up to 1,200 customers an hour and sell $5 million of fast food during Olympic Games. At 3,000 sq ft the building, next to the Olympic Stadium, is bigger than the current largest McDonald’s, in Moscow. The Russian restaurant will regain its ti…
Dutch Olympic athletes are facing government fines because they delayed finishing their degrees. About 50 of the athletes competing at the London 2012 Games are still at university or college. For many of them, Olympic training commitments have interrupted their studies meaning they will be forced to pay thousands of euros in penalties. Dutch law states that each student must pay standard tuition…
…o cheat,” says John Hoberman. He believes the more money you offer, especially in poorer countries, the greater the chance an athlete will be tempted to dope. How much for a gold medal at London 2012 Olympics: • Singapore – $800,000 • Kazakhstan – $250,000 • Kyrgyzstan – $200,000 • Uzbekistan – $150,000 • Russia – $135,000 • Tajikistan – $63,000 • US ̵…
ic Games begin on 29 August 20012 and close on 9 September 2012. During the London 2012 Olympic Games top sportsmen and women from across the world will be competing in 26 sports which break down into 39 disciplines. There are 20 sports in the Paralympic schedule in the London 2012 Games. An Olympic Park has been created on 2.5sq km of land in east London from former industrial land that has been…
…first day of the Games’ sporting action was delayed for about an hour. The men’s football competition gets under way with eight games later, including Britain v Senegal at Old Trafford at 20:00 BST. The penultimate day of the torch relay sees the flame visit Buckingham Palace. The flag mix-up at Hampden Park had been an “embarrassing mistake” and not the start Games organi…
alleges, during a two-month investigation in which reporters posed as Middle Eastern ticket touts, it found corruption involving people representing 54 separate countries. More than one million London 2012 tickets were distributed abroad among all the nations taking part in the Games, but the IOC has strict rules to try to combat touts. National Olympic committees must ensure that their allocation…
sing ceremony as a “mashed-up symphony”. Kim Gavin said it would showcase “British creativity in the arts” and take people on a musical journey from Elgar to Waterloo Sunset in 30 tracks. The director explained that while the national flags would process in, the athletes would come in together as “friends” rather than country-by-country as in the opening ceremon…
London’s Olympic Stadium will welcome the athletics events later in the day, ensuring the Olympic Park’s busiest day since the Games opened a week ago. More than 200,000 people will be at the park, prompting warnings for those not attending the Games to avoid the area. The Central Line, which serves the Olympic Park in Stratford, is suspended from Liverpool Street to Leytonstone. It f…
The official Olympic flag has arrived in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, the host city of 2016 Games. Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes waved the flag after stepping off the plane with other officials and Brazilian athletes who competed in London. The flag was handed to Eduardo Paes on Sunday in London before the flame at the Olympic Stadium was extinguished. The move marks the official start of Rio&#…
…8221; he said. The completed steel sculpture, known as ArcelorMittal Orbit, stands at the heart of the Olympic Park After the Olympics, the public won’t be able to access the Orbit until Easter 2014 – when the South Plaza is opened up. Ticket prices have not been announced for the full opening from 2014. Members of the media were given a sneak preview of the experience on Friday morni…
…tity of who was to light the symbolic flame was shrouded in secrecy ahead of the ceremony. The group of seven, chosen by British Olympic champions, each lit a single tiny flame on the ground, igniting 205 petals, one for each competing nation or territory. Long stems then rose towards each other to form a cauldron, signifying unity. The flame made a dramatic arrival via the Thames on a speedboat c…
…sponse to the lunar insertion into the organization’s trademarked logo. The five interlocking rings represent the five parts of the world involved in the global games. The symbol was designed in 1912 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games. …
A cyclist has been killed in a crash with what police are describing as an “Olympic bus” on the border of the Olympic Park in Hackney, eastern London. The man, believed to be aged 30, was injured just before 19:45 BST at the junction of Ruckholt Road and East Cross Road, Hackney. Police and an air ambulance attended but the man was pronounced dead at the scene about half an hour later…
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