Angelina Jolie has invited the Duchess of Cambridge to the Olympics party she is throwing alongside fiancé Brad Pitt. The Hollywood couple has hired out London’s Victoria and Albert and are hosting an Olympics-themed Night At The Museum. The party, to take place on 25 July, two days before the official Olympics party, is to be held in honor of sporting heavyweight Muhammad Ali. The glamorou…
Great Britain’s women’s basketball team are beaten 88-63 by USA despite a spirited performance in a Games preparation match in Manchester • Drivers on East Midlands Trains will strike from 6-8 August, union Aslef says, threatening disruption to spectators travelling to the Games • Certain ministers, including the prime minister, chancellor, culture secretary and foreign secretary will…
…preview of the experience on Friday morning. At 114.5 metres (376 ft), the Orbit is the tallest sculpture in the UK – twice the height of Nelson’s Column. The tangled steel lattice – 63% of which is recycled steel – incorporates the five Olympic rings. “We wanted to make something that was kind of a deconstruction of the tower,” said Anish Kapoor. “Towers…
Women’s football is the first event of the Olympics and is to kick off later, two days before the official opening ceremony. The Team GB women’s football side will get 18 days of sport under way at 16:00 BST against New Zealand at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. Designated Games Lanes, covering about 30 miles of roads and off limits to the public, have begun operating in London. And gov…
rol of Olympic venue security, working alongside unarmed troops, searching and checking people going into the stadiums and other venues. Olympic sites number more than 30 sporting venues and more than 70 “non-competition venues” including car parks and hotels. …
…t wearing headphones? Take them off and soak up the atmosphere you idiots.” But they did find some support. Spectator Mari Fotherby told the Independent: “Why shouldn’t they wear them? They train hard 364 days of the year. If they want to use music to stay calm as they get ready to race then they should.” As well as disappointing the fans, the swimmers who wore the headphones are likely to have le…
n emotional push for new restrictions. The powerful gun lobby vows to oppose new gun control measures, arguing the US Constitution forbids them. Thursday’s procedural vote to begin debate passed 68-31, with a handful of Republicans joining all but two Democrats, who have the majority in the chamber. The US Senate has begun debate on a proposal to expand criminal background checks on gun buy…
Duran Duran, Snow Patrol, Stereophonics and Paolo Nutini are celebrating the start of London Olympic Games at a special concert in Hyde Park this evening. The show coincides with the opening ceremony, which will be shown on big screens in the park. Scottish singer-songwriter Paolo Nutini took to the stage to loud cheers to open the show in front of 50,000 fans. Each of the four acts on the bill w…
as only hours later she spotted it featured the mis-spelling “Oylmpic”. Jerri Peterson was shocked to discover that her Olympic tattoo had been spelt incorrectly Jerri Peterson was one of 70 international employees selected by her firm to take part in the relay as a thank you for her years of charity work. She said: “I always wanted to have a tattoo but I never quite felt passio…
The former National Geographic magazine photographer, Chuck O’Rear, was driving to visit his girlfriend when he was struck by the beauty of the Californian rolling vineyards in Napa Valley. Chuck O’Rear, now 69, was so entranced by the green of the grass and the white clouds in the perfectly blue California sky that he pulled over and got out his camera. Chuck O'Rear Never for a momen…
Zara Phillips, Queen Elizabeth’s granddaughter, will not only look the part at the upcoming London Olympic Games, she will be living like her fellow competitors, too. Zara Phillips, Princess Anne’s daughter, is to be given no special treatment, it has emerged, staying in the Olympic village and sharing the same security and transport as other athletes. On Monday, Zara Phillips, 31, told of her ex…
mmittee’s executive meeting in Quebec City. Doha and Baku were rejected for a second time in a row after failing to make the final list for the 2016 Games. The winning host city will be named on 7 September 2013 in Buenos Aires. The 15-member executive board, headed by IOC president Jacques Rogge, chose the finalists after examining a technical evaluation report compiled by a panel of Olympi…
The White House has announced today that First Lady Michelle Obama will lead the official U.S. delegation to the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London. It has become somewhat of a tradition for first ladies to lead the U.S. delegation. Laura Bush performed the duty at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, and Hillary Rodham Clinton headed up the delegation at the 1994…
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…
London Olympics 2012 has hardly even had time to enjoy its success and already Rio is attempting to steal its shine, earlier this week releasing the official theme song for the 2016 Olympics. As can be expected, the new song and video showcase the typical laid-back, tropical style associated with the South American gem. The Gods of Olympus Visit Rio de Janeiro, as the song is called, was written…
ton Court Palace and being carried down the Thames on the final day of the torch relay. Around 50 boats took part in the flotilla, each reflecting London’s waterborne heritage. The flame’s 70-day nationwide journey ends with the lighting of the cauldron during this evening’s opening ceremony but the identity of the person who will take on the honor remains a mystery. Five-times r…
traints on this already stretched network,” he said. The biggest anti-doping operation in the history of the Olympics also begins on Monday. Drug testers are expecting to take the first of about 6,000 samples for testing at the London 2012 laboratory. Half of the competitors will be tested including every medallist at the Olympics and Paralympics. Ahead of the Games G4S chief executive Nick…
…a mass bell ringing. Big Ben rang for three minutes for the first time since King George VI’s funeral in 1952. The three-and-a-half hour show was rehearsed more than 200 times, with each of the 7,500 volunteers spending on average 150 hours practicing during the build-up. The event used 12,956 props and boasted a million-watt PA system using more than 500 speakers. Thousands of fans also ga…
…mably it was that personality that relieved David Petraeus of his critical faculties when he invited Paula Broadwell well and truly into his camp. Paula Broadwell left Harvard with a lesser diploma in 2008, a master of public administration, after one additional semester. According to her former professor news that she was to become David Petraeus’s biographer shocked many in the national se…
ssigned to private security. Greater Manchester Police had to deploy officers to provide security at a hotel in Salford where four Olympic football teams will stay – after only 17 of an expected 56 G4S staff turned up for work. In the Commons on Monday the home secretary reiterated the government only knew on Wednesday that there would not be enough G4S security guards and had reacted quickl…
The first gold medal of the London 2012 Olympics has been won by China, which ended the first day on top of the medal table. Yi Siling’s victory in the women’s 10 m air rifle was the first of six medals for China, including four golds. Mingjuan Wang took weightlifting gold, Sun Yang won China’s first male gold in swimming and Ye Shiwen, 16, set a world record in the 400 m indivi…
Chinese Olympic swimmer Ye Shiwen has denied taking performance-enhancing drugs, after smashing a world record at the London Olympics. Ye Shiwen, 16, won gold in the 400 m individual medley after breaking her personal best by at least five seconds. She swam the last 50 m quicker than the men’s champion, prompting leading US coach John Leonard to describe her performance as “disturbing…
…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 ̵…
Organizers LOCOG announce that more Olympic tickets will go back on sale after the row over empty seats. It said an initial 3,000 tickets – including 600 gymnastics tickets – were “put back into the pot” and sold on the London 2012 website on Sunday night. More tickets returned by sports federations would be released the night before events, LOCOG added. Transport chiefs s…
…ph Lauren has designed US Olympic garb, lawmakers said the Chinese involvement had a symbolic impact, as the US anxiously searches for clues of renewed economic competitiveness. “Today there are 600,000 vacant manufacturing jobs in this country and the Olympic committee is outsourcing the manufacturing of uniforms to China?” said Steve Israel, a House Democrat. “That is not just…
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