Everything Olympics 2012

[myxylivethelife]

So, with the Olympics fast approaching, I said to myself, hmmmm, i wonder if anybody else is going to any events... who should I ask. Oh! I got it! I'll ask everyone on coldplaying!!!!! :cool:

 

 

So, this is for all olympic gossip. Which countries are you rooting for (besides your own)? Any athletes to play special attention to? And, is anybody going to any events? I wanna hear some stuff from you guys!!!

[Tnspieler1012]

This should be in News & Sports, but on topic, I always binge out on the Olympics. Even watched most of the televised trials. No, not physically going.

[Destrokk]

whats so great about it

[Black Rose]

Is that the sound of a misuse of a trademark claim landing on Ian's doorstep from LOCOG?

 

London 2012, the heavy-handed Olympics. At least the camp should be quiet for the next few weeks as the soldiers have to stand in for G4S's lack of security.

[Tnspieler1012]

whats so great about it

 

:shrug:

[Reilly]

Is that the sound of a misuse of a trademark claim landing on Ian's doorstep from LOCOG?

 

London 2012, the heavy-handed Olympics. At least the camp should be quiet for the next few weeks as the soldiers have to stand in for G4S's lack of security.

 

What in the actual blue FUCK

[Black Rose]

I feel sorry for the soldiers coming back from 6+ weeks pre-deployment training in Canada/Wales and being told that leave is cancelled regardless what they had planned because a private company seriously f*cked up.

 

Better a solider than someone whom has been given 5 days training how to do security

[Reilly]

I know what you were trying to say, I just don't get WHY you're saying it in a thread about seeing events and enjoying the games, are we seriously going to have to read this shit at every mention of the Olympics over the next month?

[Ms Magpie]

I'm looking forward to the gymnastics and pole vault.

 

 

And, well, Blur.

[Coeurli]

I like to watch athletics and swimming :D

[Petit Prince]

I'm dreading the olympics :embarrassed:

[Guest howyousawtheworld]

I worry that it will become an event dominated by pricks who came out of the Tate Modern School of W@ankery.

 

Leave it to the athletes.

[Tnspieler1012]

I liked the Tate Modern school of ******y... :shame:

[Guest howyousawtheworld]

I liked the Tate Modern school of ******y... :shame:

 

Don't get me wrong - there is a lot of fantastic work in that place but sometimes it can be embroiled by the stench of people like this.

 

 

 

Looks like a retro paedophile.

[Destrokk]

I'm looking forward to the gymnastics and pole vault.

 

 

And, well, Blur.

 

that answered my question

[busybeeburns]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hbbcOVXc8I]Olympics 2012 Flag error offends North Korean footballers - YouTube[/ame]

 

Olympics 2012: Flag error offends North Korean footballers

 

North Korea's womens football match against Colombia is delayed as their players refuse to take to the field after their photos are incorrectly shown on the big screen beside the flag of South Korea.

 

The error occurred whilst the players were warming up and led to the match being delayed by one hour and five minutes.

 

Locog have issued a statement of apology saying "clearly it is a mistake, we will apologise to the team and the National Olympic Committee".

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18992365

[busybeeburns]

Olympics: London 'Zil lanes' cause traffic chaos

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTUC9_QkKas]Olympics: London 'Zil lanes' cause traffic chaos - YouTube[/ame]

 

London opened special lanes for Olympics traffic on Wednesday, causing tailbacks for ordinary drivers and fuelling fears that the transport network is unable to cope with the strain of the Games.

[busybeeburns]

 

London 2012 Olympics: 'Too hot' for trains to stop at Stratford

 

As temperatures hit 30C in some parts of London, Greater Anglia services in and out of Liverpool Street station were hit with speed restrictions due to the heat affecting overhead power lines.

 

This led to at least nine trains not stopping at Stratford in east London, the site of the Olympic Stadium.

 

Network Rail said that figure represented a fraction of the 500 trains stopping at Stratford out of 1,900 run overall by Greater Anglia.

 

'We are currently in the middle of a £200million project to completely replace all the overhead lines on the Great Eastern Main Line between London and Chelmsford,' a spokesman said.

 

'While the core section from Liverpool Street to Stratford has been completed, the sections of railway which have speed restrictions in place today have overhead lines dating from the 1950s and 1960s. The wire in these sections can expand and sag in high temperatures and, as a result, it is necessary to reduce speeds in order to avoid damaging the equipment and trains.

 

'The contingency arrangements put in place today are tried and tested and are designed to minimise both the risk of damage to equipment and trains as well as any disruption to passengers.'

 

But Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT transport union, blamed cuts to maintenance budgets.

 

'While we fully agree that safety must be paramount we refuse to believe that this extraordinary move (the speed restrictions) on a major route on the eve of the Olympics is not linked to the government's systematic cuts to rail maintenance and renewal budgets and staffing,' Mr Crow said.

 

'Hotter countries than Britain run trains without a problem and we have a right to know why key services are running on infrastructure that is half a century old with the inevitable consequences that we have seen today.'

 

Meanwhile Tube services to and from Heathrow were disrupted on the busiest day for athlete arrivals and there were delays between Stratford International and Woolwich Arsenal, and Beckton and Canning Town due to a signal failure at Custom House on the Dockland Light Railway.

 

http://www.metro.co.uk/olympics/

[busybeeburns]

Flag error offends North Koreans

 

London-based Olympic officials 'to blame' over wrong Korean flag

 

Olympic officials in London are to blame for a flag row which jeopardised a women's football game at Hampden Stadium in Glasgow, it has emerged.

 

The North Korean women's team walked off after a video introducing their players showed the South Korean flag. They later returned to play the match. BBC Scotland understands the video package was sent from London and Hampden organisers had no input. Prime Minister David Cameron said it was "an honest mistake".

 

In a news conference on the eve of the opening ceremony of the Games, he told assembled journalists: "This was an honest mistake, honestly made. "An apology has been made and I'm sure every step has been taken to ensure these things don't happen again. We shouldn't over-inflate this episode - it was unfortunate, it shouldn't have happened and I think we can leave it at that."

 

BBC Scotland's Olympics correspondent Kheredine Idessane said: "These video packages are sent centrally from London, out to the other venues, so, this isn't a Glasgow problem. "There were the correct North Korean flags flying in the top tier of the stadium where they have all the flags displayed from countries who are competing in the tournament."

 

The North Korean team could only be persuaded to return for their match against Colombia after the error was corrected. As yet the London games organisers have been unable to clarify who made the video.

 

The blunder had the impact it did because of the situation which exists between both Koreas. Both countries are still technically at war after the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice. Speaking after the match, North Korea's coach Sin Ui Gun said: "Our team was not going to participate unless the problem was solved properly."

 

A statement released by London 2012 organisers said: "Ahead of the women's football match at Hampden Park, the Republic of Korea flag was shown on a big screen video package instead of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea flag.

"Clearly that is a mistake, we will apologise to the team and the National Olympic Committee and steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again."

 

The incident made headlines around the world - except in communist controlled North Korea. State news agency KCNA reported the women's Olympic football team beating Colombia 2-0 but made no mention of the flag row.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18995657

[Tnspieler1012]

Seriously impressed by the tenacity and fitness of South Korea and Japan. Spain should've lost by much more.

[busybeeburns]

 

London 2012: Wales' Joe Allen listed as English by Team GB

 

Olympic organisers have apologised for another embarrassing gaffe after describing Welsh midfielder Joe Allen as English in the Team GB programme.

 

Allen, 22, is set to feature for Great Britain on Thursday in their opening match against Senegal at Old Trafford. The mistake follows the humiliating episode at Hampden Park when the South Korea flag was shown next to North Korea's women footballers. "We apologise for this mistake," said Games organisers Locog in a statement. "New programmes are now being printed with the correction in time for Team GB's next match."

 

Allen, a fluent Welsh speaker from Pembrokeshire, is one of five Welshman selected in the men's football squad. But under the title 'Nationality' in the player profiles in the official programme for Thursday's match, the Swansea City midfielder is listed as English. Compatriots Ryan Giggs, Craig Bellamy, Aaron Ramsey and Neil Taylor have all correctly been identified as Welsh in the official programme.

 

Allen, who started for GB in their warm-up match against Brazil last week, is expected to make the starting side for their Group A opener in Manchester. The Football Association of Wales, who had urged Welsh players not to play at the Olympics, has been asked for a comment.

 

Before the first day of competing at London 2012 was over, organisers had already been forced to apologise after the flag mix-up when North Korea faced Colombia in Glasgow. As the North Korean players were being introduced before the match, South Korean flags were mistakenly displayed in the video package.

 

The squad walked off and could only be persuaded to return when the teams were announced again with each player's face displayed next to the North Korean flag, delaying kick-off by about an hour. In response to that blunder, London 2012 spokesman Andy Mitchell said: "A genuine mistake was made for which we apologise."

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18997930

[busybeeburns]

We've not even reached the opening ceremony yet.... :laugh3:

[busybeeburns]

 

London 2012 Olympics: A four-hour mystery tour for athletes on lost buses

 

It should have been the day when London showed the sporting world that seven years of planning for the Olympics had paid off in spades.

 

Instead, the first foreign athletes arriving in the country found themselves in the middle of a classic British farce, as bus drivers taking competitors to the Olympic Village got lost.

 

Competitors from Australia and the United States were on buses that took almost four hours to get from Heathrow Airport to the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, despite being able to use a newly-opened Games lane on the M4. It should take less than an hour.

 

The driver of the Australians’ bus admitted that he had never driven the route before and did not know how to work the vehicle’s satellite navigation. As a result, he gave his passengers a roundabout tour of the capital, taking in Buckingham Palace and West Ham, until one Australian provided directions from a map on his mobile phone.

 

The bus-driving mirrored a plot line from the BBC comedy Twenty Twelve. Some observers have pointed out that the programme is looking more like a documentary than a satire as the London 2012 countdown ticks towards zero.

 

“It would have been a great tourist trip if that is what you are here for,” said Damian Kelly, an Australian team official who was on the lost bus. “[The driver] admitted this was the first time he had taken the route and no one had taught him how the navigation system works.

 

“One of the doctors on board got it working for him, but then the Olympic Village hadn’t been loaded into the system and everyone was trying to find the name of the street that the village was in. In the end another physio got out his iPhone and gave directions to the bus driver via his phone.”

 

The American team had a similar experience. Kerron Clement, a world 400 metre hurdles champion, used the Twitter microblogging service to observe: “We’ve been lost on the road for four hours. Not a good first impression London … Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee. Could we get to the Olympic Village please?”

 

A spokesman for Locog, the Games organisers, said: “It is day one and we have only had one or two issues where journeys have taken longer than planned. The vast majority of journeys have been fine.”

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/9404433/London-2012-Olympics-A-four-hour-mystery-tour-for-athletes-on-lost-buses.html

[busybeeburns]

 

London 2012 Olympics: G4S failures prompt further military deployment

 

A further 1,200 military personnel are being deployed to help secure the 2012 Olympics in London following the failure by G4S to provide enough private security guards, the government has said.

 

The extra personnel, who were put on standby last week, have been drafted in amid continuing fears that the private security contractor's handling of the £284m contract remains a risk to the Games as Friday night's opening ceremony approaches.

 

Ministers took the decision on Tuesday morning at a cabinet committee for the Olympics chaired by the prime minister, David Cameron.

 

The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said: "On the eve of the largest peacetime event ever staged in this country ministers are clear that we should leave nothing to chance. The government continues to have every confidence that we will deliver a safe and secure Games."

 

Paul Deighton, chief executive of Locog, the London organising committee, said that the guards would be subject to regular on-the-job checks and training "to make sure people are up to scratch".

 

The news of the extra training came after the Guardian reported that security staff training to use x-ray scanners to detect explosive devices were being allowed to "cheat" their way through tests aimed at checking to find out whether they could identify dangerous items. Deighton said the decision to deploy "roving teams" followed advice from military commanders.

 

"We will have a series of roving teams to go around and train people on the job to make sure people are up to scratch and performing," he said. "It is not a question sending people out untrained."

 

The decision to enlist the extra military personnel had been taken to "de-risk" the security operation, he said. He added that G4S's performance had been "a huge disappointment" and that the Games would be safer with more soldiers carrying out duties due to have fallen to G4S.

 

The security firm has supplied fewer than 6,000 guards despite a contract to provide more than 10,000.

 

Deighton said: "You can't be absolutely certain about anything with a temporary workforce, so we simply want to substitute a temporary workforce with a permanent, reliable, workforce that we get with the military.

 

"We have an excellent plan. It remains in place and … is working very well. What has happened is that the private, man-guarding, aspect of the force turned out not to be reliable, and we have substituted it with the much more reliable and better trained military force. So the net outcome is, you end up with an even better security force."

 

The move was endorsed by the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Chris Allison, who is the national Olympics security co-ordinator. "[i'm] very happy with it," he said. "It helps de-risk and it gives flexibility. We don't know what's round the corner, and it gives us an extra 1,200 skilled personnel we can deploy."

 

The military had been expecting the this mobilisation, which will mostly consist of Royal Marines, and people from 16 Air Assault Brigade. They were put on standby last week because of the continuing difficulties at G4S.

 

Commanders had wanted the 1,200 extra staff brought into the fold immediately rather than wait until just three days before the opening ceremony.

 

Hunt said on Tuesday that G4S numbers were continuing to "rise significantly", but the Ministry of Defence and officials across Whitehall appeared to have lost confidence that the company could fulfil its commitments.

 

Visitors to Olympic venues have been greeted by large numbers of military personnel, but the organisers said police and soldiers had been briefed to be very welcoming.

 

"Our aim is to ensure the sport takes centre stage," said Allison. "This is a sport event with security overlaid, not a security event with sport."

 

He said 12,500 police officers would be deployed to help secure the Olympics and crowded areas of London, and at other sites on peak Games days; 9,500 of those would be in London.

 

Announcing the mobilisation of the extra troops, Deighton revealed the depth of the disappointment of Games organisers with G4S. "We signed a contract with the biggest security company in the world, whose biggest customer was the UK government. They continually reassured us they had the capacity to deliver. It was obviously a huge disappointment … This is all about their poor performance in a very strong contract."

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/24/london-2012-olympics-g4s-military?newsfeed=true

[Coeurli]

We've not even reached the opening ceremony yet.... :laugh3:

:lol::lol::lol: