Olympics News: 
The Summer Olympics begins Friday, 27 July 2012, and ends Sunday, 12 August 2012.

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad, and also known as London 2012 as per the official logo, are scheduled to take place in London,

United Kingdom, from 27 July to 12 August 2012.

Following a bid headed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe and the then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, 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.[2] London will become the first city to officially host the modern

Olympic 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 a former 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.

Bidding process
2012 Summer Olympics bidding results

City     NOC     Round 1     Round 2     Round 3     Round 4
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     —     —     —


Venues and infrastructure

Venues of the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics
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 London. 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.

In November 2004 the 500-acre Olympic Park plans were revealed.The plans for the site were approved in September 2004 by Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney and Waltham Forest.The redevelopment of the area to build the Olympic Park required compulsory purchase orders of property. The London Development Agency was in dispute with

London and Continental Railways about the orders in November 2005. The LCR accused the LDA of killing off development in the area. The LDA planned to buy land alongside the Olympic Park for the Stratford City development project, bringing the 180-acre site of the former Stratford Rail Lands into a mixed-use development, including 4,500 new homes, office space, hotels and shops. This resulted in 2011 with the completion of the largest urban shopping centre in Europe being operated by Westfield.By May 2006, 86% of the land had been bought as businesses fought eviction; this led to an enquiry being set up. 206 companies had to relocate by July 2007. In addition, residents who opposed the eviction tried to find way to stop it by setting up campaigns. However they had to leave as 94% of land was bought and the other 6% bought as a £9 billion regeneration project started.

Games Lane signage, prior to the games

However, there were some issues with the original venues not being challenging enough or being financially unviable. For example, the road racing at the Olympic Games was originally scheduled to take place in Regent's Park and on Hampstead Heath. Instead the Olympic road races will start and finish on The Mall in central London, extend into Surrey to the south and include loops around Box Hill.The Olympic mountain bike event will take place at Hadleigh Farm after the event was moved from Weald Country Park,after the UCI labelled the course at the park "too easy" in July 2008.A location in Kent was also considered.

The Olympic marathon course, which was set to finish in the Olympic stadium, was moved to The Mall.The idea angered some members of the local community, who said they had been left out of the Olympics as no events would take place in the boroughs. The change was made as closing Tower Bridge would cause gridlock in central London.North Greenwich Arena 2 was scrapped in a cost-cutting exercise, Wembley Arena being used for badminton and rhythmic gymnastics events instead.
 
Public transport
The Olympic Javelin service 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 London Line, 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, and train operators will put on longer trains during the day.
TfL has also built a £25 million cable car across the River Thames, the "Thames Gateway Cable Car", to link 2012 Olympics venues.It was inaugurated in June 2012 and crosses the Thames between Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks, carrying up to 2,500 passengers an hour at a heights above 50 metres in the air. It is designed to cut journey times between the O2 arena and the ExCel exhibition centre – both of which are Olympic locations. The system could provide a crossing every 30 seconds.

The plan is to have 80% of athletes travel less than 20 minutes to their event and to have 93% of athletes within 30 minutes of their event.The Olympic Park would be served by ten separate railway lines with a combined capacity of 240,000 passengers per hour. In addition, the LOCOG planned for 90% of the venues to be served by three or more types of public transport.Two park-and-ride sites were off the M25 with a combined capacity of 12,000 cars 25 minutes away from the Olympic Park. Another park-and-ride site was planned in Ebbsfleet which would have capacity for 9,000 cars where spectators could board a 10-minute shuttle bus.To get spectators to Eton Dorney, four park-and-ride schemes were set up. Spectators would be dropped off at Windsor Racecourse with a bridge going over the Thames linking the racecourse to the rowing venue.
A London Underground train decorated to promote London's Olympic bid – this coincided with plans for investment in the city's public transport network

Some lanes on some roads in London will be dedicated to athletes, officials and VIPs.Concerns have been expressed at the logistics of spectators travelling to the events outside London. In particular, the sailing events at Portland are in an area without direct motorway connections, and with local roads that are heavily congested by tourist traffic in the summer.[64] However, the Weymouth area did undergo a major upgrade to its road infrastructure. A £77 million relief road connecting Weymouth to Dorchester was built and opened in 2011.Some £16 million was put aside for the rest of the improvements. In addition the plans removed five roundabouts to ease congestion and replaced them with traffic lights.But some residents were unhappy that the roundabouts were removed.

FirstGroup will provide the venue shuttle and park-and-ride services, services connecting peripheral park-and-ride sites on the M25 with the Olympic Park and Ebbsfleet, and a nationwide network of express coaches to the Olympic Park and the Weymouth and Portland sailing venue. The services will require around 900 vehicles in total, although some will be sub-contracted.

Partners
Sponsors of the 2012 Olympic Games

To help fund the cost of staging the games the London Olympic organisers have agreed partnership deals with major companies. The companies have signed up into four categories; worldwide, tier one, tier two and tier three.Volunteers Unpaid volunteers known as Games Makers will 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".

Ticketing
Organisers estimate that some 8 million tickets would be available for the Olympic Games, and 1.5 million tickets for the Paralympic Games.It is estimated that 82% of available Olympic tickets and 63% of Paralympic tickets will be sold. LOCOG aims to raise £375–£400 million in ticket sales. There will also be free events: for example, the marathon, triathlon and road cycling,[90] although, for the first time in Olympic history, the sailing events will be ticketed. Tickets for the London Prepares series, the Olympic test events, started to go on sale in May 2011.To reduce congestion, ticket holders are entitled to free use of London's
 
Public transport network on the day of the event.
Following IOC rules, people applied for tickets from the NOC of their country of residence. European Union residents were able to apply for tickets in any EU country.
In Great Britain, ticket prices range from £20 for many events to £2,012 for the most expensive seats at the opening ceremony. Free tickets were given to military personnel, and children were invited to win tickets.Free tickets were also given to the survivors and families of those who died during 7 July 2005 London bombings.[96] Initially, people were able to apply for tickets via a website from 15 March 2011 until 26 April 2011. There was a huge demand for tickets, with 1.8 million people applying for 20 million tickets – three times the 6.6 million tickets available in the first round lot, with 95% of the applications from Great Britain.

More than 50% of the sessions went to a random ballot.Over half the people who applied got no tickets, and the process was widely criticised, one consumer group questioning the point of taking money out of people's bank accounts before they knew which tickets they had successfully purchased, and triple Olympic Champion Bradley Wiggins labelling the process a shambles.However, Lord Coe and the LOCOG insisted that the process was fair, and that there was no perfect system.

There was a second round of ticket sales for events that failed to sell out in the initial allocation. This took place over a 10-day period between 23 June and 3 July 2011, with priority given to those who were unsuccessful in the first allocation process. At this point there were about 1.7 million tickets for football and 600,000 for other sports, including archery, hockey, football, judo, boxing and volleyball, among other sports with 1.5 million tickets priced between £20 and £50. Because so many people were buying tickets and because the Ticketmaster website did not update immediately, 15,000 had their application rejected, but 90% of people did get some tickets; some events sold out in 15 minutes, and by 8 am, ten sports had sold out. People who were successful in the first round of tickets were allowed to buy more during the period 8–17 July 2011. By this point 1.5 million tickets were available for football, 40,000 for volleyball and 8,000 for freestyle wrestling on a first-come-first-served basis. However, by 10 July all the tickets for volleyball had been sold, as 3.5 million tickets had been sold in total. Another round of tickets was promised to go on sale in 2012[when?].[dated info]

In Russia people bought "Olympic vouchers" which one would have to redeem in London during July and August 2012, with people making their own accommodation and travel arrangements. In Brazil, the ticket website and payment system did not work properly for the first three and a half days. The British government was also asked to explain why it bought 9,000 tickets.

Nearly one million more tickets went on sale starting on 11 May 2012.
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, One month later, the Olympic and Paralympic flags were raised outside theLondon City Hall
 
Countdown clock in Trafalgar Square

A countdown clock in Trafalgar Square was unveiled, 500 days before the games. The clock broke down the following day. The same location hosted one of a number of events to mark a year before the games. Final countdown to the start of this year's summer games in London has begun with the ceremony of lighting of Olympic flame in Ancient Olympia in Greece.Security
 
Main article: Security for the 2012 Summer Olympics
The security operation is led by the police, with 10,000 officers available, supported by 13,500 members of the armed forces. Naval and air assets, including ships situated in the Thames, Eurofighter jets and surface-to-air missiles, will be deployed as part of the security operation. The cost of security has also increased from £282m to £553m. This will be the biggest security operation Britain has faced for decades. The figure of 13,500 armed forces personnel is more than Britain currently has deployed in Afghanistan.[114] The Metropolitan Police and the Royal Marines carried out security exercises in preparation for the Olympics on 19 January 2012, with 50 marine police officers in rigid inflatables and fast response boats, joined by up to 100 military personnel and a Lynx Navy helicopter.

The Ministry of Defence distributed leaflets to residents of the Lexington building in Bow, announcing that a missile system was to be stationed on top of the water tower. This caused concern to some residents.[116][117] The Ministry said it probably would use Starstreak missiles and that site evaluations had taken place, but that no final decision had taken place.
 
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 former is a ribbon with blue, yellow, black, green, and red stripes winding through the text "LONDON 2012," making the shape of the River Thames in East London. The latter, designed by Wolff Olins, was unveiled on 4 June 2007 and cost £400,000. This new logo is a representation of the number 2012, with the Olympic Rings embedded within the zero.The Paralympics logo (far left) and the different official colour combinations for the Wolff Olins main logo design

This will be the first time that the same essential logo is to be used for both the Olympic and Paralympic games. The standard colours are green, magenta, orange and blue; however, the logo has incorporated a variety of colours, including the Union Flag to promote the handover ceremony.[121] The flexibility of the logo has enabled sponsors to incorporate their corporate colours into a personalised version, such as Lloyds TSB, British Airways, and Adidas.

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 the 1974–1982 children's television programme Tiswas, commenting that appealing to young people is difficult, and that they will see right through attempts to patronise them.

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.

Several newspapers have run their own logo competitions, displaying alternative submissions from their readers. The Sun displayed a design by a macaque monkey. It was suggested that the logo resembles the cartoon character Lisa Simpson performing fellatio and others have complained that it looks like a distorted Swastika. In February 2011, Iran complained that the logo appeared to spell out the word "Zion" and threatened to boycott the Olympics. Iran submitted its complaint to the International Olympic Committee, describing the logo as racist, asking that it be withdrawn and the designers be confronted. The IOC quietly rejected the demands, and Iran announced it would not boycott the Games.

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 claimed to have had seizures after watching the sequence on TV. In response, a short segment was removed from the London 2012 website. Ken Livingstone, then London Mayor, said that the company who designed the film should not be paid for what he called a "catastrophic mistake."

A blogger at the BBC said that "London 2012's new logo has got the country talking [although] not in the manner the organisers would have hoped." One employee at a design firm described it as "well thought out" and anticipated it would "become a source of pride for London and the Games."
source: Wikipedea