Home » Sports & Recreation » Sporting Events » Olympic Games

Summer Olympics - London 2012

Ranked #256 in Sports & Recreation, #11,588 overall

This year, London will become the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times (1908, 1948 and 2012).

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad, are due to take place in London, United Kingdom, from 27 July to 12 August 2012

The Paralympic Games, for athletes with disabilities, will be held August 30th to September 9th.

London won the Olympic bid on July 6th, 2005 over bids from Paris, Madrid, New York, and Moscow, among others. One of the key factors in London's success was its emphasis on an efficient, less wasteful Games.

The bid made use of many existing venues and offered some plans for how new ones would be used after the Games . The site of the Olympic Park, in the Stratford area of eastern London, is an environmentally-degraded, former industrial region in need of revitalization.

Ideally the Games will allow the city to revive the area and restore the environment. The Olympic Park site is intended to be the largest urban park created in Europe in over 150 years, and should connect the existing green spaces of the Lea Valley Regional Park and the river corridors that flow to the Thames
London 2012 is the first Games to put so much emphasis on arriving by public transport, walking and cycling. A brand new fast train, the "Javelin" will run from King's Cross station to Stratford International in just seven minutes carrying up to 25,000 passengers per hour from Central London to the Olympic Park.

Londres en 2012 Jeux Olympiques

Countdown to Summer Olympics in England

Summer Olympics in England: July 27, 2012

London 2012 on Twitter

Latest info and comments

At London 2012, for the first time, women's boxing will be included in the Olympic programme with female boxers able to participate in three events.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Andy Miah

The London 2012 Olympics aims to leave the Stratford area fully revitalized

The London 2012 Olympics aims to leave the Stratford area fully revitalized. There will be green park spaces, with cycling and walking paths, and new residential buildings from the converted Olympic Village. The area will be well-connected to central London via public transport, and railway and bus improvements will remain throughout London. Certainly there are great plans and intentions for a sustainable Games.

London's Preparations for the Olympics

Not since 1996, when England hosted the European Championships, has the country held a major sporting event

.Having hosted the Summer Olympics twice previously - in 1908 and 1948 - the English capital certainly has history with the event, but even still there are surprises abound with improvements needed to stadiums, transport and accommodation.

With around seven million permanent residents, it's hard to imagine how the city's infrastructure will cope with the extra influx of athletes and sports fans that will be descending on the city from the end of July - traditionally a busy tourist season in any year.

The International Olympic Committee has been thinking about this since 2005 - when the games were awarded to London - so big changes are expected in the city. The world famous underground has seen changes, with an expansion made to the East London Line and upgrades have been made to the North London Line and the Docklands Light Railway as well.

On top of this a brand new rail service has been created - named in Olympic fashion as the Javelin - which features bullet trains that will speedily take passengers across the city.

There are expected to be around eight million tickets for the Olympics available, with half of them priced under £20 to ensure bustling crowds at all events. This means all visitors - from those in top range hotels to those in budget hotels in London - will be able to snap up tickets for at least part of the extravaganza.
Sensibly, accommodation for the Olympians will be spread across the city to ensure all competitors are housed close to where they need to be to compete, rather than in an all encompassing Olympic Village as per tradition, but a tradition that has become outdated as the games have grown and the events no longer all take place in one place.

The events will be taking place in a mixture of old venues that the city is known for - such as Wembley, Lord's and the O2 Arena - as well as specially constructed arenas. As well as new sporting venues, the city will see other new buildings going up. The Shard, for example, is due to be finished in May 2012 and standing at 1017 feet it is sure to be a major sight on the London skyline.

A digital clock, located in Trafalgar Square, commenced a countdown to the opening ceremony on 14 March 2011.

London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay route animation: by london2012 | video info

234 ratings | 45,939 views

curated content from YouTube

Olympic Games Winter Update 2012 - London 2012

An update of what has been going in at London 2012 in the last 4 months, from venues to cultural events to what the mascots have been up to.

London 2012 Olympics Mascots

Wenlock and Mandeville

London 2012 Mascot Official Site

Latest London 2012 Videos

Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

London 2012 Olympics Wenlock Mascot Sports Poster Print

Olympic pins

Juegos Olímpicos de Londres 2012

About the Olympics

The Olympic Games were first celebrated in 776 BC in Olympia (hence the name) in Greece. According to legend, Hercules is the originator of The Olympic Games. Legend says they were created to honor Hercules father, Zeus.

They were celebrated until 393 A.D. Pierre Fridy, Baron de Coubertin, revived the Olympics in their modern form in 1896. The Olympics are a contest of multiple sports and are divided into the Summer and Winter Olympics. The Winter Olympics are a much smaller event than the Summer Games.

In 1896 there were 241 participants from 14 nations. This number grew until there were 11,100 competitors from 202 countries in The 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The Olympics are a huge media event. Well over half the world watched the Olympics in Sydney in 2000 (3.8 billion to be exact).

The growth of the Olympics is one of the major problems of the Olympics today. Sponsorships solved financial problems in the 1980's. Today the large number of athletes, media and spectators make it difficult and expensive to host the Olympics. A great amount of infrastructure is needed.
London is to host the 2012 Olympic Games. The games are to be held from 27th July to 12th August 2012, to be followed by the Paralympic Games. An Olympic Village has been proposed to be built with 17,320 beds providing a comfortable and spacious environment for athletes.