London 2012 Olympic venues to stage test events this summer

Spectators will get their first taste of sport in the new 2012 Olympic venues this summer at test events including beach volleyball at Horse Guards Parade and basketball in the Olympic Park, London organisers have revealed.

A comprehensive 12-month testing programme will cover 42 events across 26 venues and involving 8,000 athletes from more than 50 countries. Not all of the events will be open to the public, depending on the emphasis of the tests.

A total of 150,000 tickets costing between £5 and £35 will be on sale across several events, though others such as the London–Surrey Cycle Classic to test the road race route will be free.

Tickets for the equestrian test events at Greenwich Park will be given away to local residents. Altogether, a total of 250,000 spectators are expected to see events in the so-called "London Prepares Series".

"This is a dress rehearsal for us but the public, of course, will see the rehearsal not the dress. It will look and feel quite different," London 2012's chief executive, Paul Deighton, said. "We don't expect to get everything absolutely right. If we did I wouldn't be happy because we wouldn't be stress-testing things properly. We will learn from our mistakes and make changes."

The series takes in events organised and ticketed by the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog), such as the mountain biking at Hadleigh Farm for which there will be 5,000 tickets available in July, and others, such as the Badminton World Championships at Wembley Arena in August, that it will not organise but will help to staff and operate.

The test events are grouped into three "clusters". The first, in July and August this year, predominantly take place at venues away from the Park. The exceptions are the BMX and basketball events on the Olympic Park, for which spectators will be bussed in to what will still be a construction site.

Locog will build reduced versions of the temporary grandstands that will be used for the Games at the showjumping arena in Greenwich Park and the beach volleyball venue at Horse Guards Parade.

The second cluster of events, from November to January next year, will include events at the aquatics centre and the velodrome, while the third cluster in April and May 2012 will test the rest of the Olympic Park venues including the athletics stadium.

Deighton said the events would be used to test technology, security, ticketing, crowd flows and logistical considerations surrounding the individual sports themselves. Modern pentathlon, for example, has recently switched to laser shooting in place of the traditional air rifles and will need to be rigorously tested in situ at Greenwich Park.

Deighton and Locog's head of sport, Debbie Jevans, said lessons had been learned about the staging of events from Beijing and about city-wide logistics from the Vancouver Winter Games.

In Vancouver in 2010, organisers came under fire for the Own the Podium programme that attempted to maximise home advantage by restricting access to rival teams.

Asked whether London organisers risked going the other way by inviting top-class athletes to compete in Games-time conditions at new 2012 venues, Jevans said: "We have worked closely with the BOA but also with international federations to allow them access. We have to be open but we also have to get ready to deliver these Games."

Deighton also confirmed that those who did not get all the tickets they applied for in the first phase of applications, which closed on 26 April, would be offered the chance to buy other tickets in July. Those who didn't apply in the first phase won't be able to do so until late this year.Tickets for the test events will be sold through Ticketmaster from 26 May.

The four ticketed London 2012 test events this summer are

Mountain bike 31 July, Hadleigh Farm, Essex

Beach volleyball 9-14 August, Horse Guards Parade

Basketball 16-21 August, Basketball Arena, Olympic Park

BMX 19-20 August, BMX Track, Olympic Park

Other London 2012 venue ticketed events include

Gymnastics (artistic, rhythmic and trampoline) 10-18 January 2012, North Greenwich Arena

Cycling (track) 17-19 February 2012, Velodrome, Olympic Park

Aquatics (diving) 20-26 February 2012, Aquatics Centre, Olympic Park

Aquatics (synchronised swimming) 18-22 April 2012, Aquatics Centre, Olympic Park

Hockey 2-6 May 2012, Hockey Centre, Olympic Park

Wheelchair tennis 2-6 May 2012, Eton Manor, Olympic Park

Water polo 3-6 May 2012, Aquatics Centre, Olympic Park

Athletics 4-7 May 2012, Olympic Stadium

Paralympic athletics 8 May 2012, Olympic Stadium

Ticketing arrangements for these events will be announced later this year

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London 2012 - Mixed sailing debuts as 2016 events decided

The 2016 Olympics will see mixed sailing make its Games debut after the ISF announced the 10 events that will take to the water in Brazil.

After a meeting in St Petersburg the ISAF Council announced that a two-person mixed multihull event will be included in 2016.

But arguably the biggest impacting change for the Great Britain sailors comes with the culling of the Star keelboat class, an event GB has dominated in recent years.

Great Britain's Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson won gold in the Star event at the 2008 Games but next year's 2012 Olympic will be their final chance to top the podium in the class.

The Elliott class - making its debut next year in London - has also been cut from the Olympic schedule meaning there will be no keelboat events in Rio.

The women's skiff has also been added to the schedule, a decision received with mixed feelings by John Derbyshire, the Royal Yachting Association's racing manager and performance director.

"The RYA is supportive of the slate of events agreed by ISAF Council, which shows progression within the sport and a clear pathway now, particularly for girls transitioning from the youth classes into Olympic campaigning," said Derbyshire.

"It's disappointing in some ways to be losing an old friend with the removal of the Star class, which has been a fixture in Olympic sailing since 1932, and that Women's Match Racing has not proved as successful as hoped.

"The mood of the meeting clearly showed, though, that the retention of the keelboat events is not the right thing for the future growth and appeal of the sport in Olympic terms right now, and that the events chosen reflect more the mass participation of young sailors within sailing, and the RYA supports those views."

More Than The Games / Eurosport

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London 2012 Olympics Going Green

Going for Green London 2012 Olympics

When the design for the London 2012 Olympic Stadium was made public in 2007, it was clear that a new approach to stadia design was being attempted.  The London Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) is in fact determined to make the London 2012 Olympics the first ever sustainable Olympic Games.  The ODA will be constructing sustainable venues, infrastructure, and facilities for the games focusing on energy- saving programs, recycling, and the utilization of alternative sources of energy.  In short, lot of efforts are being made to ensure that the London 2012 Olympics event is going green.

To ensure a green London 2012 Olympics, the different buildings and stadia are being constructed to satisfy specific targets.  For instance, everything is designed to promote low carbon emissions, low-waste, and green transportation.  The timber used for different constructions is from legal sources that are fully traceable and sustainable, use of public transport will be encouraged, and only renewable forms of energy will be used.  Rainwater is being collected to reduce the quantity of potable water that will be used in the different buildings by 40%.  But the CO2 reduction target is higher than this.

A range of new innovations will help to cut the carbon footprint of the entire project by 50 %.  The aggregate industry involved aims to use 25 % of recycled materials, while cement manufacturers plan to use ‘greener’ ways for firing their plants. Around 90 % of even demolition materials are going to be recycled.

The desire to use cutting edge design has hiked the required capital.  The initial estimate of the budget for the Games was around $3.5 billion.  This has now soared to $13.94 billion.  The desire to be innovative is commendable, but the question is if it will be completed on time.  In the past, London projects such as the Wembley Stadium refurbishment, and the Millennium Dome had gone over-budget and also over-schedule.

In a nutshell, here are the environment-friendly schemes the organizers have planned:

• At the Olympic village, carbon emissions will be cut down by 50% and the entire project will be 25% more energy-efficient  compared to current building regulations;
• 20% of the required energy for the Olympic Village and Park will be provided by renewable energy;
• 20% of the construction materials, and around 90% of the demolished buildings will be  recycled or reused;
• Water used at the Olympic village will be 20% less than average
• 30 km of new routes for walking and 50 km of new cycling tracks will be built.

The Olympics games are meant to be a grand celebration of sportsmanship and human achievement by the international community, but they also give the host nation an opportunity to display their vision and organizational skills.  This time, the organizers want the London 2012 Olympics to be the greenest in history.

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London 2012 Olympics Coins

London 2012 Olympic 50p coins go into circulation

For the very first time in the thousand year history of Britain’s Royal Mint, coins designed by the public will go into national circulation.  Approved by the Queen herself and the Treasury, these are the new 50 pence coins specially designed to commemorate the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.  And with more than 87 million of these coins entering into national circulation in the coming year, people will have ample opportunities for collecting the entire set of designs.

Recently, Lord Coe, the London 2012 chairman was quoted as saying that coins are a component of the very fabric of our lives and that it would be a huge honor to have a set of coins designed by members of the British public specifically for celebrating London 2012 Olympics.  He said the 50 p coins were a part of a wide-reaching, long-lasting, cultural legacy benefiting the whole nation and that he was looking forward to collecting the entire coin range.

The reverse side of each of the coins depicts one of 29 sports designed by citizens of England and Wales.  The designs were chosen from around 30,000 entries submitted in a public competition organized by the Royal Mint.  Some of the sports featured on the 50 pence pieces include swimming, sailing, and basketball, as well as lesser-known games such as handball and the Paralympic sport boccia.

The selected designers vary from a Reading delivery driver and a Manchester policeman to a Bristol schoolgirl and a Preston bank clerk.  These lucky winners have the privilege of seeing their designs used in coins meant for public circulation and which like other coins have the approval of the Queen as well as the Treasury.

Children have produced two of the selected designs which have been unveiled already, but have not yet been issued.  Florence Jackson, who hails from Bristol, was only nine when, beating17,000 other entries, she won a BBC One Blue Peter competition last year.  Florence’s high-jump design was the first of the officially approved 50p designs out of the series of 29.  A cyclist in a velodrome was the second winning design by a child, designed by 16 year old Theo Crutchley-Mack, from Halifax.  This was unveiled in 2010.

The newly designed 50 pence coins are in circulation in England and Wales.  And with the London 2012 Olympics drawing closer, the excitement for collecting them is slowly building up.

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