Everything about 2012 Olympics totally explained
The
2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the
Games of the XXX Olympiad, are due to be celebrated in
London from
27 July to
12 August 2012.
London will become the first
city to host the modern
Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in
1908 and in
1948.
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.
On
6 June 2005 the
International Olympic Committee released its evaluation reports for the five candidate cities. Although these reports didn't 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.
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. 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 can't predict it since I don't know how the IOC members will vote. But my gut feeling tells me that it'll be very close. Perhaps it'll 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).
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 [theBritish] who have such bad food. After Finland, it's the country with the worst food." 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. 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're not going to be drawn into speculation."
| 2012 Summer Olympics bidding results |
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NOC | R1 |
R2 |
R3 |
R4
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United Kingdom |
22 |
27 |
39 |
54 |
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25 |
33 |
50 |
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32 |
31 |
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16 |
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Olympic development and preparation
Developments since the 2005 bid
The
London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games was created to oversee the staging 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, is in charge of implementing and staging 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. It focuses on oversight of the Games and the
2012 legacy before and after the Games that will benefit London and the UK.
Various aspects of the Games have developed since the time of the initial bid.
Venues and infrastructure
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. In the wake of the problems that plagued the
Millennium Dome, the intention is that there would be no
white elephants after the Games and a
2012 legacy will be delivered. Some of the new facilities will be reused in their Olympic form, while others, including the 80,000 seater main stadium, 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.
This has required the
compulsory purchase of some business properties, which are being demolished to make way for Olympic venues and infrastructure improvements. This has caused some 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 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 other stadia across the
UK.
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'd 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.
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:
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. Grassroot sport cuts will fund Olympics, government figures suggested on
August 19 2007.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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 £1.2 million. This new logo is a representation of the number 2012, with the
Olympic Rings embedded within the zero. 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.
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 that'll 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 widely commented that the logo resembles an image of the cartoon character
Lisa Simpson performing
fellatio and others have complained that it looks like a distorted
Swastika.
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.
Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, said that the company who designed the film shouldn't be paid for what he called a "catastrophic mistake".
However, some people praised the logo for being "different", "dynamic" and "unexpected". BBC Sport acknowledged that "London 2012’s new logo has got the country talking", and compared the innovative design to that of the logos of
Mexico 1968 and
Munich 1972. Others described the logo as being "something different and something well thought out for long-term relevance", and anticipated it would "become a source of pride for London and the Games."
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 its 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 wouldn't be included in Beijing because it "did not feel it merited inclusion in 2008".
Aquatics (disciplines: diving, swimming, synchronised swimming, water polo): Aquatic Centre in the Olympic Park.
Archery: Lord´s Cricket Grounds.
Athletics (track and field): Olympic Stadium.
Badminton: Greenwich Arena
Basketball: Basketball Arena (north from Olympic Stadium) in the Olympic Park and North Greenwich Arena.
Boxing: ExCeL London near London City Airport in east London’s Royal Victoria Dock.
Canoe/kayak (disciplines: canoe/kayak flatwater and canoe/kayak slalom): Broxbourne, Lea Valley Country Park in Hertfordshire, 30km north of the Olympic Village.
Cycling (disciplines: road cycling, track cycling, mountain bike, Skateboarding and BMX racing): Regent's Park. VeloPark in the north of the Olympic Park and Weald Country Park.
Equestrianism (Eventing, Dressage, Jumping): Greenwich Park
Fencing: Fencing Hall at the Olympic Park.
Football: A number of stadia across the United Kingdom, with the final being played at Wembley Stadium
Gymnastics (disciplines: artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and trampolining): Greenwich and North Greenwich Arenas
Handball: Handball Arena in the west of the Olympic Park.
Field hockey: Hockey Centre in north west of the Olympic Park
Judo: ExCeL London.
Modern pentathlon: Olympic Stadium, Greenwich Park
Rowing: Eton Dorney, near Windsor Castle, around 25 miles west of London.
Sailing: The Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, England’s south coast.
Shooting: Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich Common in south east London.
Table tennis: ExCeL London.
Taekwondo: ExCeL London.
Tennis: Wimbledon
Triathlon: Hyde Park.
Volleyball: Indoor – Earls Court. Beach – Horse Guards Parade in Downing Street and across St James’ Park from Buckingham Palace.
Weightlifting: ExCeL London.
Wrestling (Graeco-Roman and Freestyle): ExCeL London.
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 the United Kingdom the BBC will be sole broadcaster of the games.
In Europe, members of the European Broadcasting Union (excluding RAI in Italy). In Italy, SKY has achieved rights.
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's 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 Canada, a consortium of CTVglobemedia and Rogers Media properties.
In South Korea, SBS has the rights to broadcast the games.
In Brazil, TV Record had been awarded the broadcasting rights.
Record News will broadcast also and make a complementar coverage to TV Record.
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 will broadcast the games.
Criticism
In Wales there has been criticism from Plaid Cymru about the games depriving Wales of money, by using UK-wide funding rather than English funding.
This criticism has also been applied across other parts of the UK, that the games would only benefit the South East of England.
The Wales on Sunday claimed former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair broke his promise not to use National Lottery funding for the Olympic games.
In November 2007, Edward Leigh MP, criticised the organisers for significantly under-estimating the cost of staging the games, suggesting they'd either "acted in bad faith or were incompetent".
In February 2008, a London Assembly culture and sport committee report expressed concerns over the funding of the games taking away money from London's sports and arts groups.
Further Information
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