2012 London Olympics-Part I

2012 London Olympics – a look

July 27, 2012 to August 12, 2012

          The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad, also known informally as London 2012, are scheduled to take place in London, United Kingdom, from 27 July (when the opening ceremony is held) until 12 August 2012, although the first event begins on 25 July.

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 bids from Moscow, New York City, Madrid and Paris. London will become the first city to officially host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948. Construction in preparation for the Games has involved considerable redevelopment, particularly themed towards sustainability. The main focus of this is 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.

Logo:

There have been two London 2012 logos:

      one for the bidding process created by Kino Design

      a second as the brand for the Games themselves created by Wolff Olins

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. 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. 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. 

Mascot:-

The official mascots for the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games were unveiled on 19 May 2010; this marks the second time (after Vancouver) that both Olympic and Paralympic mascots were unveiled at the same time. Wenlock and Mandeville are animations depicting two drops of steel from a steelworks in Bolton. They are named Wenlock, after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock, which held a forerunner of the current Olympic Games, and Mandeville, after Stoke Mandeville, a village in Buckinghamshire where a forerunner to the Paralympic Games were first held. The writer Michael Morpurgo wrote the story concept to the mascots, and an animation was produced; it is intended that this will form part of an ongoing series concerning the mascots in the run-up to the Games in 2012. Two stories have been created about the mascots: Out Of A Rainbow, the story of how Wenlock and Mandeville came to be, and Adventures On A Rainbow, which features the children from Out Of A Rainbow meeting the mascots and trying out many different Olympic and Paralympic sports. 

Opening ceremony:-

The Opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics will be held on 27 July 2012 and be called "The Isles of Wonder". Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle will be the artistic director for the opening ceremony and the music directors will be Rick Smith and Karl Hyde of the electronic music duo Underworld. The games will be officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Closing ceremony:-

The closing ceremony of the London 2012 Summer Olympics will start on 12 August 2012. The ceremony will include a handover by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, to Eduardo Paes, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, the host city of 2016 Summer Olympics.

Participants:-

          Over 10,000 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) are expected to participate, surpassing the 1948 Summer Olympics in London and the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester as the largest multi-sport event ever to be held in the United Kingdom.

There were initial concerns about Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei not sending any female athletes to the games: nevertheless, the Saudi team eventually sent two women.