2012 OLYMPICS: LONDON TO HOST THE GAMES FOR THE THIRD TIME
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 20 Jul 2012
The 2012 Summer Olympic Games is officially called the Games of the XXX Olympiad. It will also be known informally as London 2012 and the Games are scheduled to occur in London, United Kingdom from July 27 to August 12, 2012.
London this year 2012 will become the first city to officially host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously hosted in 1908 and in 1948. Only Los Angeles, Paris, Athens and London became Olympic cities twice.
The host city for an Olympic Games is usually chosen seven years ahead of their scheduled celebration. By the bid submission deadline of July 15, 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.
Following a bid headed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe and then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, London was selected as the host city on July 6, 2005 during the 117th IOC Session in Singapore, defeating bids from Moscow, New York City, Madrid and Paris.
Moscow was the first city to be eliminated, followed by New York then Madrid. The final two cities left in the ultimate voting were London and Paris. At the end of the fourth round of balloting, London won the right to host the 2012 Games with 54 votes, defeating Paris's 50. The celebrations in London were cut short by terrorist attacks on London's transport system less than 24 hours after the proclamation.
The main focus of the construction of venues is a new 200 hectare Olympic Park, built on a former industrial site at Stratford in the east of London. The Games also will use many venues which were already in place before the bid.
During the closing ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, the Olympic Flag was formally handed over from the Mayor of Beijing to the Mayor of London. This was followed by a piece depicting London as the next host. One month later, the Olympic and Paralympic flags were raised outside the London City Hall.
The Olympic logo was designed by Wolff Olins and is a depiction of the number 2012, with the Olympic Rings inserted within the zero. This will be the first time that the same logo will be used for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The Olympics torch relay runs from May 19 to July 27, 2012. The Olympic Flame arrived on flight BA2012 on May 18, 2012 from Ancient Olympia in Greece. The relay will last 70 days, with 66 evening celebrations and six island visits, with about 8,000 people carrying the torch a distance of about 8,000 miles (12,800 km).
While the Games are privately funded, the cost for the venues and infrastructure, and redeveloping the land for the Olympic Park are spent largely by public money by a budget of about ?9.3 billion in 2007. The costs for staging the Games of about ?2 billion are funded from the private sector through sponsorship, merchandising, ticketing and broadcast rights.
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