Olympics: London 2012

| 27th July – 12th August |
| The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics is tomorrow – seven years of hard work and preparation.London last hosted the Olympics in 1948, at a cost of £732,000 – this year its expected 205 nations will take part in over 300 events, costing the UK a staggering £9.8billion. But what does it mean for the UK? The Olympics has brought urban regeneration and housing to regions across London, improved transport links across the UK along with several thousand short term jobs. Tourism in the area during the two week period is expected to boom, with several hundred thousand international spectators expected, and millions of UK residents travelling to London to witness the once in a lifetime spectacle. |
Olympic Stadium
- The Olympic Stadium will have a capacity of 80,000 during the Games
- It is the lightest Olympic stadium ever built
- The fourteen lighting towers are needed because this the first Olympic Games with HD TV freeze-frame coverage that will be essential to capture the action
- Part of the supporting structure of the roof is formed from 2,500 tonnes of steel tubing that was actually recycled from old gas pipelines
Aquatics Centre
- The steel used to build the Aquatics centre comes from Newport in Wales
- The wave shaped roof on the Aquatics Centre measures 12,000 square metres which is one and a half times bigger than Wembley football pitch
- The amount of material that had to be excavated to build the Aquatics centre was the equivalent of 160,000 tonnes of soil
Velodrome
- The Velodrome is one of the most sustainable venues in the Olympic Park. The lightweight roof weighs roughly half that of any other covered Velodrome, helping create a highly-efficient building
- The Velodrome ‘Cable – net’ roof is made from 17 km of steel cables. That’s over 10 miles of steel cable, twice the height of Mount Everest
- The designers and builders of the London 2012 Velodrome are aiming for it to be the fastest indoor cycling track in the world
International Broadcast Centre/Main Press Centre
- The International Broadcast Centre will be a 24 hour media hub for around 20,000 broadcasters, photographers and journalists who will bring the Games to an estimated four billion people worldwide
- It is the size of six full size football pitches
- The biggest fork lift truck in the country was used during the erection of the steel frame
Facts & Figures provided by Get Set London www.london2012.com



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