Let the Games begin...

To herald the first day of the London 2012 Olympic Games, today at 8.12am Big Ben and thousands of bells across the United Kingdom will ring out as loudly as possible for three minutes to welcome the Games.

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad, also known informally as London 2012, is scheduled  from 27 July (when the opening ceremony is held) until 12 August 2012. Over 10,000 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) are expected to participate.

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 bids from Moscow, New York, 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.

Credits: Wikipedia via The Logo Factory

Construction in preparation for the Games has involved considerable redevelopment, particularly themed towards sustainability. The main focus of this is 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.

Leaner, greener and cleaner could be London 2012's motto as sustainability and ecology are pushed to the forefront.

The official mascots for the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games were unveiled on 19 May 2010; this marks the second time (after Vancouver) that both Olympic and Paralympic mascots were unveiled at the same time. Wenlock and Mandeville are animations depicting two drops of steel from a steelworks in Bolton. They are named Wenlock, after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock, which held a forerunner of the current Olympic Games, and Mandeville, after Stoke Mandeville, a village in Buckinghamshire where a forerunner to the Paralympic Games were first held. The writer Michael Morpurgo wrote the story concept to the mascots, and an animation was produced; it is intended that this will form part of an ongoing series concerning the mascots in the run-up to the Games in 2012. Two stories have been created about the mascots: Out Of A Rainbow, the story of how Wenlock and Mandeville came to be, and Adventures On A Rainbow, which features the children from Out Of A Rainbow meeting the mascots and trying out many different Olympic and Paralympic sports.

Approximately 4,700 Olympic and Paralympic medals have been produced by the Royal Mint. They were designed by David Watkins (Olympics) and Lin Cheung (Paralympics). Virtually all the gold, silver and copper was mined in Salt Lake County. Each medal weighs 375–400g, has a diameter of 85mm and is 7mm thick, with the sport and discipline engraved on the rim. The obverse, as is traditional, features Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, stepping from the Panathinaiko Stadium that hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, with Parthenon in the background; the reverse features the Games logo, the River Thames and a series of lines representing "the energy of athletes and a sense of pulling together". The medals were transferred to the Tower of London vaults on 2nd July 2012 for storage.

Lit in Greece, the Olympic Flame arrived in the UK on 18th May 2012 before setting out the next day on a 70-day Olympic Torch Relay, bringing the excitement of the Games to everyone. The Olympic Flame stands for peace, unity and friendship. It has travelled to within an hour of 95% of people in the UK, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey during the 70-day Torch Relay. It enabled local communities to shine a light on the best their area has to offer. 8,000 inspirational people carried the Olympic Flame as it journeys across the UK. Nominated by someone they know, it was their moment to shine, inspiring millions of people watching in their community, in the UK and worldwide. Last Monday it was the time of a Portuguese fighter to carry it. Her name is Melanie Oliveira and she's been struggling against multiple sclerosis for years. I felt deeply honoured of being Portuguese!

London is ready and so are we! It is high time to inspire a whole generation: let the Games begin!

Sources: Wikipedia, London 2012 , BBC News and The Guardian