The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad, are scheduled to take place in London from 27 July to 12 August 2012.
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 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.
While budgetary considerations for the games have generated some criticism, they have also been welcomed by others as having prompted a redevelopment of many of the areas of London in which events are to be held – particularly themed towards sustainability. The main focus of the games will be 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.
Motto: Inspire a Generation
Nations participating: 191
(qualified): 204 (estimated)
Athletes participating: 10,500 (estimated)
Events : 302 in 26 sports
Opening ceremony: 27 July
Closing ceremony : 12 August Stadium Olympic Stadium
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 City, Paris and Rio de Janeiro.
The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone noted his primary motivation to initiate and lobby for the city's bid as to develop the east end of London, neglected for over thirty years. 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.
All five cities submitted their candidate file by 19 November 2004, and were visited by the IOC inspection team during February and March 2005. The Paris bid suffered two setbacks during the IOC inspection visit: a number of strikes and demonstrations coinciding with the visits and a report coming out that one of the key members of the Paris bid team would face charges over alleged corrupt party political finances.
On 6 June 2005, the IOC 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.
Throughout the process, 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-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 117th IOC Session in Singapore. 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. The celebrations in London were short-lived, being overshadowed by terrorist attacks on London's transport system less than 24 hours after the announcement.
2012 Summer Olympics bidding results | ||||||
City | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | ||
22 | 27 | 39 | 54 | |||
21 | 25 | 33 | 50 | |||
20 | 32 | 31 | — | |||
19 | 16 | — | — | |||
15 | — | — | — | |||
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. Some of the new facilities will be reused in their Olympic form, while others will be resized or relocated.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, some 125 miles (200 km) southwest of the Olympic Park. The football tournament will be staged at several grounds around the UK. Work began on the Park in December 2006 when a sports hall in Eton Manor was pulled down. The athletes' village in Portland was completed in September 2011.
In November 2004 the 500 acre Olympic Park plans were revealed. The plans for the site were passed in September 2004 by Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney and Waltham Forest. The redevelopment of the area to build the Olympic Park required compulsory purchase orders of property. The London Development Agency and the London and Continental Railways had a dispute about the orders in November 2005. The LCR accused the LDA of killing off development in the area. The LDA planned alongside the Olympic Park to buy land for the Stratford City development project, which the 180-acre site of the former Stratford Rail Lands into a mixed-use development, including 4,500 new homes, office space, hotels and shops. This resulted in 2011 with the completion of the largest urban shopping centre in Europe being operated by Westfield. By May 2006 86% of the land had been bought as businesses fought eviction; this led to an enquiry being set up. 206 companies had to relocate by July 2007. In addition, residents who opposed the eviction tried to find way to stop it by setting up campaigns. However they had to leave as 94% of land was bought and the other 6% bought as a £9 billion regeneration project started.
However, there were some issues with the original venues not being challenging enough or being financially unviable. For example, the road racing at the Olympic Games was originally scheduled to take place in Regent's Park and on Hampstead Heath. Instead the Olympic road races will start and finish on The Mall in central London, extend into Surrey to the south and include loops around Box Hill. The Olympic mountain bike event will take place at Hadleigh Farm after the event was moved from Weald Country Park, after the UCI labelled the course at the park "too easy" in July 2008. A location in Kent was also considered.
The Olympic marathon course, which was set to finish in the Olympic stadium, was moved to The Mall. The idea angered some members of the local community, stating that they had been left out of the Olympics as no events would take place in the boroughs. The change was made as closing Tower bridge would cause gridlock to London. North Greenwich Arena 2 was scrapped in a cost-cutting exercise, with Wembley Arena being used for badminton and rhythmic gymnastics events instead.
Participants
Athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) are expected to participate. The Netherlands Antilles Olympic Committee, which had planned to continue functioning after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles, had its membership withdrawn by the IOC Executive Committee at the IOC session of June 2011. However, Dutch Antillean athletes who qualify for the 2012 Olympics will be allowed to participate independently under the Olympic flag.[151] Listed below are NOCs who have qualified at least one athlete. As of 18 June 2012, 190 countries have qualified at least one athlete.
Yet to qualify
As of 22 June 2012, these 13 NOCs are yet to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics:
Sports
The 2012 Summer Olympic programme features 26 sports and a total of 39 disciplines:
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For the first time, women's boxing is included in the programme, with 36 athletes competing in three different weight classes. There is a special dispensation to allow the various shooting events to go ahead, which would otherwise be illegal under UK gun law.[which?]
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 2006 Winter Olympics, after they lost votes for reconsideration, and were last scheduled for a Games at the 2008 Olympics. Following the decision to drop the two sports, the IOC held a vote on whether or not to replace them. The sports considered were karate, squash, golf, roller sports and rugby sevens. Karate and squash were the two final nominees, but neither received enough votes to reach the required two-thirds majority.
Even though formal demonstration sports were eliminated following the 1992 Summer Olympics, special tournaments for non-Olympic sports can be run during the games, such as the Wushu tournament at the 2008 Summer Olympics. There were attempts to run Twenty20 cricket, and Netball tournaments parallel with the 2012 games, but neither campaign was successful.
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