2012 Summer Olympics

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"London 2012" redirects here. For information on London's Olympic bid, see London 2012 Olympic bid.

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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

Main article: 2012 Summer Olympics bids
File:London-2012-logo.svg
Logo used for 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 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.[1]

On 6 June 2005 the International Olympic Committee released its evaluation reports for the five candidate cities. Although these reports did not 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.[2]

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.[3] In the final run-up to the 117th IOC Session, London and Paris appeared to be increasingly in a neck-and-neck race. On 1 July 2005 Jacques Rogge, when asked who the winner would be, told the assembled press: "I cannot predict it since I don't know how the IOC members will vote. But my gut feeling tells me that it will be very close. Perhaps it will 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).[4] 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 [the British] who have such bad food. After Finland, it's the country with the worst food."[5] 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.[6] 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 are not going to be drawn into speculation."[7]

2012 Summer Olympics bidding results
City NOC Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4
London United Kingdom 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 - - -

Olympic development and preparation

Olympic rings
Part of a series on
2012 Summer Olympics

Developments since the 2005 bid

Main article: 2012 Summer Olympic development

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

Main article: 2012 Summer Olympic venues

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[8], 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 would 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.[9]

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 18 August 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.[10] Grassroot sport cuts will fund Olympics, government figures suggested on 19 August 2007.[11]

In November 2007, Edward Leigh MP, criticised the organisers for significantly under-estimating the cost of staging the games, suggesting they had either "acted in bad faith or were incompetent". [12]

On 10 December 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. [13]

There have, however, been concerns over how the Olympics are to be funded. 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. [14] There have also been complaints that funding towards the Olympics has been to the detriment of funding other areas of the UK. 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.[15] The Wales on Sunday newspaper claimed former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair broke his promise not to use National Lottery funding for the Olympic games.[16] [17]

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.[18]

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.[19] 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 27 July to 12 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.[20]

File:All London 2012 logos.PNG
The Paralympics logo (far left) and the different official colour combinations for the Wolff Olins main logo design. Its initial reception in the UK was largely negative.

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 £400,000. [21] This new logo is a representation of the number 2012, with the Olympic Rings embedded within the zero.[22] 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.[23]

Criticisms

In 2008 on BBC there was critcisms that the logo looked like the Nazi flag.


The logo is the first in olympic history to be able to use a variety of colours. The standard colours included green, magenta and blue, however the logo has incorporated a variety of colours, including the Union Flag to promote the handover ceremony [24]. Sponsers have also incorporated their company colours in the logo, notable examples include Lloyds TSB [25] and Adidas [26].

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 they will see right through attempts to patronise them.[27]

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.[28] Several newspapers have run their own logo competitions, displaying alternative submissions from their readers. The Sun displayed a design by a macaque monkey.[29]. It was widely commented that the logo resembles an image of the cartoon character Lisa Simpson performing fellatio[30] and others have complained that it looks like a distorted Swastika.[31]

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.[32] Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, said that the company who designed the film should not be paid for what he called a "catastrophic mistake".[33]

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.[34] 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."[35]

Handover Ceremony

The handover ceremony marks the moment when the previous games in Beijing in 2008 hands over the Olympic Flag to the new host city of London. [36] The precise details of the event have yet to be released, but it will feature "the urban dance group ZooNation, the Royal Ballet and Candoco, a disabled dance group." [37]

For the London Games, the handover is also being celebrated in a UK-wide series of events. BBC will be broadcasting "The VISA london 2012 party" on BBC One and Radio 2 which is a free concert on the Mall in central London with 40,000 available tickets.[38] In nations and regions around the UK will be live screens that will show the activities from Beijing, the Closing Ceremony and then the concert itself. Local communities around the UK will also be hosting their own events.

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 would not be included in Beijing because it "did not feel it merited inclusion in 2008".[39]

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 Spain,TVE have the rights of these games.
  • In Brazil, TV Record had been awarded the broadcasting for only free to air television rights.[44]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Day One Of Paris 2012 Inspection By IOC". GamesBids. Retrieved 2005-03-09.
  2. ^ "Paris, London and New York Get Glowing IOC Reports". GamesBids. Retrieved 2005-06-06.
  3. ^ "London And Paris Tie In 2012 Bid". GamesBids. Retrieved 2004-08-31.
  4. ^ Francis Keogh and Andrew Fraser. "Why London won the Olympics". BBC. Retrieved 2007-06-05.
  5. ^ London will host 2012 Olympics, National Business Review, retrieved 2 September 2007
  6. ^ London tactics upset Paris mayor, BBC News
  7. ^ Voting error gave Olympics to London, BBC News, retrieved 5 February 2007
  8. ^ "London unveils 2012 stadium plan". 2007-11-08.
  9. ^ "Olympics budget rises to £9.3bn". BBC. 2007-03-15. Retrieved 2007-04-22.
  10. ^ "Viewpoint: Olympic gold snatched from Ulster". The Belfast Telegraph. 2007-08-18. Retrieved 2007-08-18.
  11. ^ "Sport cuts will fund Olympics". The Times. 2007-08-19. Retrieved 2007-08-19.
  12. ^ BBC NEWS | Politics | 2012 chiefs face costs criticism
  13. ^ "Olympic Delivery Authority budget". DCMS. 2007-12-10. Retrieved 2007-12-10.
  14. ^ BBC NEWS | England | London | Olympics £440m 'drain on culture'
  15. ^ Shocking cost to Wales of Olympics
  16. ^ Broken promises cause games anger
  17. ^ BBC NEWS | Politics | MPs back Olympic funds transfer
  18. ^ Adidas London 2012
  19. ^ "Ticketing at London 2012". London 2012 website. Retrieved 2007-01-04.
  20. ^ "London 2012 Games To Be Held During Ramadan". GamesBids.com. 2006-10-15. Retrieved 2007-04-22.
  21. ^ "London unveils logo of 2012 Games". BBC Sport. 4 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-05. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ "The new London 2012 brand". London 2012. 4 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  23. ^ "London 2012 logo to be unveiled". BBC Sport. 4 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  24. ^ http://www.london2012.com/get-involved/handover/index.php
  25. ^ www.mediacentre.lloydstsb.com/.../olympics4.asp
  26. ^ http://www.london2012.com/news/archive/2007-09/adidas-welcomed-as-tier-one-partner.php
  27. ^ Tom Geoghegan (2007-06-05). "'Oh no' logo". BBC News. BBC. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ "BBC poll measuring public reaction to the new London Olympics logo".
  29. ^ "British turn up their noses at London Olympics logo" International Herald Tribune, retrieved on 7 June, 2007
  30. ^ Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - art: How Lisa Simpson got ahead at the Olympics
  31. ^ [http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/no_go_logo/Uh-Oh Logo
  32. ^ "Epilepsy fears over 2012 footage". BBC News. 5 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-05. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. ^ Online petition against Olympic logo closed, The Daily Telegraph, 8 Jun 2007
  34. ^ Why we should give London 2012 logo a chance
  35. ^ London Broil
  36. ^ London 2012.com
  37. ^ The BBC
  38. ^ Official London 2012 Announcement
  39. ^ "Women's boxing ruled out for 2008". BBC News. Retrieved 2005-10-27.
  40. ^ "Olympic site set to be moved". Cheshunt & Waltham Mercury. Retrieved 2008-06-30.
  41. ^ "Skateboarding in 2012". BBC News. Retrieved 2005-10-27.
  42. ^ BBC key to London's Olympic win | Media | MediaGuardian
  43. ^ International Olympic Committee - Organisation - Structures
  44. ^ IOC signs 2010 - 2012 TV rights deal for Brazil, IOC press release, March 16, 2007

External links

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