| Please read and enjoy our article and watch your FREE LONDON MUSIC VIDEO at the end "Rise with me the passion stirring
Feel the hope for days to come
With our hearts we'll keep the fire burning
We'll believe until our race is won"
("Until Our Race is Won" - Jonnie Horden)
Do we or don't we? Will we or won't we? Can we or can't we?
Questions, questions, questions!
All, of course, relating to the forthcoming 2012 Olympic Games which London will host. | | | The questions, of course, relate to whether we Londoners actually want the 2012 Olympic Games in London, whether we can manage them properly and if we can afford them!
Answers to the second question is probably that we will have to wait and see , the answer to the last is almost certainly not!
However, the answer to the first is that London has got the 2012 Olympic Games , we have accepted that; and, when the London Olympic Games are over, Londoners will look back with pride and nostalgia and probably wished we had been more supportive all along.
This will be the third occasion London has hosted the Olympic Games , following on from 1908 and 1948 . The only country that has hosted more Summer Olympic Games is the USA .
The 1908 Olympics , the Games of the IV Olympiad , were moved to London from Rome following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (pretty inconvenient we would have thought!). 22 nations took part in 110 events with the British team (probably not then called Team GB!) getting three times as many medals as the second-place USA.
Ironically the 1944 Summer Olympics , the Games of the XIII Olympiad , were due to be held in London but cancelled due to World War II (another minor inconvenience?). Four years later, London hosted the 1948 Summer Olympics , the Games of the XIV Olympiad . 59 nations, excluding Germany and Japan (they were not invited for security reasons!), competed in 136 different events.
Interestingly, unlike the last time Great Britain hosted the Olympics, the British athletes could only finish 12th with a measly 23 medals .
So, now on to the London 2012 Summer Olympics!
These will be the Games of the XXX Olympiad and will take place between 27 July 2012 and 12 August 2012.
The London 2012 Olympic Games will be followed by the London 2012 Summer Paralympic Games , the 14th Paralympics , between 29 August and 9 September 2012 at the Summer Olympics venues in London.
The epicentre of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be an 80,000 seater stadium in the newly-built Olympic Park in the East End of London. |
|  | | The Dream - Olympic Gold | Interestingly, though, this venue will be supplemented by more historic London locations such as Hyde Park , Horse Guards Parade and Greenwich Park.
In terms of our organisational skills, the United Kingdom as a nation, is still somewhat traumatised by the costs and chaos surrounding the construction of the ill-fated Millenium Dome in Greenwich . Let's hope we can learn from this very expensive 'white elephant' and deliver from the huge London Olympic costs the much-vaunted "2012 legacy" .
Some 2012 Olympic venues will, of necessity, be outside of London. For example, the sailing will take place around the Isle of Portland in Dorset. Other events will take place at other stadia across the UK.
So that's the plan! All we have to do is find around £10,000,000,000 to pay for the 2012 London Olympics .
It's probable that the only 'good' news about the costs of the 2012 Olympics is that we, as a country, have spent so much money bailing out the banks that the Olympic costs pale into insignificance!
Whichever way we look at it, London, the United Kingdom and the British have the 2012 Olympics, whether we like it or not.
There will be many traumas and dramas, financial, organisational, human and sporting before the 2012 Olympic Flame finally dies. We'll laugh, we'll cry, we'll complain and we'll cheer!
The London 2012 Olympics will be magnificent and the post mortem can wait! | |
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