London 2012 Summer Olympic Games

(London, England, UK)



Preparations for the London 2012 Summer Olympics are now well underway and this event is historically significant for the city. This will actually be the third time that London will have hosted to Olympic Games, with the other two times being in 1908 and then again in 1948.

Image of London 2012 Summer Olympics logo

Although most people refer to this major sporting event as the London Olympics, or the 2012 Games, the official title is the Games of the XXX Olympiad. They are being organised and orchestrated by the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, and will also include a separate Paralympic Games.


Budget and Venues

The original budget for the 2012 Olympic Games has been greatly exceeded and the total estimated cost of building new venues and actually staging the various events is now approaching £10 billion. This massive cost is being funded by four main sources, from Central Government, from the National Lottery, from advance ticketing and also from the Mayor of London.

It has been widely accepted that this dramatic hike in costs has been caused by not only the need to improve public transport and to build new venues, but because of the need to create a post Olympics legacy with a long afterlife, creating something for the whole community of London. This will involve the regeneration of various areas of London and the creation of new sporting arenas and stadiums to be used in the future, well beyond 2012. The Docklands Light Railway is one part of the public transport system destined for great improvements, and also of note, an additional new rail service named the 'Javelin' will be lauched shortly.

The London 2012 Summer Olympic Games will be based around a new stadium, at the vast Olympic Park, and this stadium will have an overall capacity of 80,000 people. The main sporting events to be staged here will include the majority of athletics races, and track and field athletics, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. Other venues in London will include the Greenwich Arena, Hyde Park, Regent's Park, the Royal Artillery Barracks, Wimbledon, and also the Lord's Cricket Grounds, where archery will take place.

Further afield, other Olympic events will be staged outside of London and at locations such as the new international sports village in Cardiff, and also at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, in Dorset.

There will be around ten million tickets sold in total for both the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games. It has been decided that these will be offered for sale in 2011 and at least half of these will be competitively priced and less than £20. These tickets will also allow free use of all public transport (buses and underground trains) for the entire day.