London 2012 blog

Writing this I'm on the way back from a day in Folkestone visiting Folkestone Academy and seeing high-quality performances from 350 young performers from 8 specialist art colleges across the area, hundreds more young people in the audience (and a sprinkling of adults representing institutions, councils and other service providers).

And all in a school building that looks like this!



If this is a taste of things to come then roll on the rest of 'Get Set' - the London 2012 education programme. 

This event marked the handover of the Paralympic Games from Beijing to London, alongside launch of the UK-wide Get Set programme and Kent County Council’s local education programme of complementary activities.

Get Set is based on the three Olympic Values (respect, excellence, friendship) and the four Paralympic Values (determination, inspiration, courage and equality). Kent have grouped a few of these together, but the young people today demonstrated each of the Values through different styles of dance, singing, playing instruments or animation.

Read more of “If only school was like this in my day”

One of the visitors to our stall at the Liberty Festival on Saturday told me that the warmest day this year had registered 30.7C – surely Saturday in central London must have got close to that!

Liberty is London’s most accessible outdoor festival, showcasing the talents of deaf and disabled artists. This year’s landmark performance, “Medal Ceremony”, brought inspiring new perspectives to traditional medal ceremonies and British success in a visually exciting production created by artists from disabled-led theatre company Graeae and the world-renowned Strange Fruit:

Read more of “What a lovely day at Liberty”

What a great weekend. I spent Sunday travelling around the east London live sites, seeing Londoners enjoy their new status as the next (rather than next but one) host of the Summer Olympic Games - and if the 1948 street party in Hoxton is anything to go by, the world is going to have a great time in London in 2012.



And then back to reality, or so I thought at least. But my first meeting of the week was about planning with the London Borough of Merton - a necessary step as we prepare to host the Olympic Tennis competition at the All England club (Wimbledon) - and lo and behold, what do I find outside the civic centre but one of over 400 flags raised around the country (including every London Borough) to commemorate the Handover!

Read more of “And the excitement continues”

The London commuter is a funny animal and conceivably a unique species.

Unlike the transport networks in other cities around the globe, travel takes place in silence on the part of the commuter, often plugged in to an mp3 player, reading a paper or tapping at a mobile device like I am - the hush broken only by the noises created by the system: announcements, beeps, the squeal of wheel on rail.

So imagine my surprise this morning, returning after a week learning lessons from the Beijing Games, to hear conversation all the way through my journey to work this morning.

And imagine my delight that the thing that had brought this cross section at least out of their natural reserve was the very Games I had been working at last week.

Read more of “Games success inspires a welcome change on the journey to work”

The Olympic Green in Beijing is different to the concept for London's Olympic Park, with several large roads running through it to make it usable in legacy – even if they are currently empty.

To my surprise I found athletes training in the public areas of the Olympic Green. The northern reaches of the Olympic Green provided a haven for some cyclists (or possibly triathletes) to stretch their bike legs...



...whilst a race walker was observed several times, including heading south from the press centre towards venues like the 'water cube' that are big draws for the crowds at present:

Read more of “Finding athletes in public places in Beijing”

I was working in the LOCOG office at the Main Press Centre on Tuesday and towards the end of the afternoon competition sessions I started to hear excited shouts.

Curiosity got the better of me and I walked down the corridor and discovered a large and occasionally vocal group of Chinese staff and volunteers, together with some international journalists attracted as I had been, watching China in a tightly contested basketball game on the giant Panasonic HDTV screen.

China forced the game to overtime and the crowd suffered/enjoyed the kind of reaction you can see in the different reactions in this image, before eventually losing. 

Then yesterday morning (3am your time) I was lucky enough to go to the archery competiton. Here I watched a match between China and Korea. Early on there had been a rousing reception for the athlete from Chinese Taipei/Taiwan, but that was nothing compared to the welcome first for Korea and then for the Chinese athlete.

Read more of “Passion - live and on a big screen”

My flight to Beijing this week concluded with a spectacular first impression of Beijing created by a British architect. Norman Foster's outstanding terminal design was enough to impress everyone disembarking from BA039 for the first time. Between that and starting at Heathrow's own Terminal 5 (T5), it was a real day of finding out what air travel should be like.

Clean, shiny, almost empty because of its efficiency, T5 makes its own impression on the first-time traveller – and one that for me at least will improve now that I understand how to get the most from the check-in machines! My son came to see me off and also seemed suitable impressed... 

Read more of “Learning from Beijing: impressive arrivals”

Pride '08 provided the latest setting for the LOCOG smiling staffers tour of London community events, with six of us working at the rally in Trafalgar Square on Saturday.

Our friends from the LDA brought their roadshow, asking what Londoners wanted to see in the Olympic Park after the Games, and we worked alongside them to make sure that any questions people had about the Games themselves could be answered – from Games venues in the City of Westminster to plans for development at Eton Dorney, the Rowing venue.


As the afternoon wore on and we burnt in the beating sun along with the crowd, the party-goers started to enjoy the entertainment on stage and became much more attracted by the stickers we were giving out as the photo shows:

Read more of “We get proud at Pride”

The last few days has seen a flurry of Games-related activity in North and East London as part of the Lee Valley Festival.

The North London Strategic Alliance (a partnership between the London Boroughs of Enfield, Haringey, Waltham Forest and Barnet) drew together an exciting programme of new and existing activity in support of the Games, with the assistance of a grant from the London Development Agency, aimed at helping residents from across that part of London understand the opportunities that the Loondon Games offers them.

On Thursday I visited 'Go Enfield Go' - a sports tournament for almost 1,000 Year Six students from across the borough. Each school took on the identity of one of the nations competing at the Olympic or Paralympic Games with the flags of Costa Rica, Israel and Brazil seen streaming down the home straight before the final 8x50m relays.

Read more of “A busy week in North East London”

Yesterday I joined LOCOG colleagues as a volunteer for the Beijing Torch Relay. This was my day in pictures...

A snowy start to the day - passing Ealing Common:



Wembley Stadium - where the Relay began:



Sir Steve Redgrave carries the Torch out of the Stadium:

Read more of “Beijing Torch Relay - my day in pictures”

The London 2012 Information Stall is reaching the end of its summer season and this Saturday we were in Trafalgar Square to mark the Liberty festival, promoting equality for disabled and Deaf Londoners. London 2012 Organising Committee and ODA staff were again enjoying the opportunity to meet with Londoners and answer their questions about the Games.

Read more of “Liberty in Trafalgar Square”

With performances on six stages, a funfair and hundreds of stalls selling food, clothes or other services, four members of London 2012 staff joined an estimated 75,000 revellers to enjoy a sunny Sunday afternoon at the London Mela this weekend.



Organised by the boroughs of West London and the Mayor of London, the London Mela offers the most wide ranging programme of any Asian festival anywhere outside the Indian sub-continent and shows off the richness of South Asian culture in London.

People visiting the London 2012 information stall came from all over London and the UK - our first visitors were Tower Hamlets residents who had their own stall as part of the festival and once the gates had opened we had visitors from Westminster, Ealing, Nottingham, Cornwall and all points in between.

Read more of “Joining the 75,000 at the Mela”

Unseasonally rainy weather couldn't dampen spirits yesterday in Trafalgar Square as Londoners and tourists together celebrated Africa Day.

Food stands selling a range of African cuisines and market stalls with a range of commemorative and traditional goods complemented the entertainment on stage, with music and dance acts from around the continent and the wider diaspora.

The London 2012 information stand was out again, helping visitors to the event to understand the benefits of the 2012 Games for all Londoners.

On this occasion we were able to bring with us a model of the Olympic Park after the Games, helping visitors (including Olaseni, with me in the photo below) to understand also what comes after the Games and how important the planning for the post-Games future is to us all.

Read more of “Bright spirits at a rainy Africa Day”

Each year the Mayor of London is required to make a presentation to Londoners and answer their questions on any topic.

This year that opportunity arose on Saturday at the 'State of London' event, an all-day conference in Westminster.

The whole event covered a range of topics including climate change, education and security but one of the first sessions was on the London 2012 Games.

An audience of several hundred Londoners heard from Paul Deighton, David Higgins and LDA Chief Executive Manny Lewis as well as Olympic Gold Medalist Denise Lewis and then had the chance to ask any questions they wanted to.

Read more of “The State of London”

On Saturday evening I enjoyed Gala Finals from the first day of competition in the Camden International Cadet Sabre Competition.

In the Fencing world 'Cadet' means under-17 and there is currently no international competition circuit for top-flight fencers in this age group. This means that even a new competition like the Camden International draws significant interest from the top fencing nations and 129 young people (male and female) came from nine different nations to compete at the William Ellis and Acland Burghley schools in Tufnell Park.

Fencing has been an Olympic sport since the inception of the modern Games in 1896 and is competed across three weapons - the foil, epee and sabre: the Camden International focussed solely on the sabre. It was organised by the Camden Fencing Club, a communty programme sponsored by the Camden Sports Council, and supported by British Fencing and the London Borough of Camden as part of their own preparations for and celebration of the London Games in 2012.

Read more of “Sabre rattling”