UK Holiday Guide - London Olympics 2012
The 2012 London Olympics : Accommodation for visitors to the London Olympics
London is the capital and largest urban area of England and the United Kingdom. London has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world which has increased over the years due to the city's economic growth. In 2012 London will host the 2012 olympic games.
There are around 10,250 athletes expecting to compete from around 204 nations. The
Opening ceremony is on July 27th , the closing ceremony on August 12th with 300 events in 26 sports.
The 2012 Olympics will use a mixture of newly built venues, existing facilities, and temporary facilities, some of them in well known locations such as Hyde Park and Horse Guards Parade. The majority of venues have been divided into three zones within Greater London: the Olympic Zone, the River Zone and the Central Zone. In addition to these are those venues that, by necessity, are outside the boundaries of Greater London.
The Olympic Zone will copntain the Olympic Park in Stratford, just seven minutes by Olympic Javelin train from central London. The park will hold
1. The Olympic Stadium, which will host the track and field athletics events as well as the opening and closing ceremonies with a planned capacity of 80,000.
2. The Aquatics Centre, which will host diving, swimming, synchronised swimming and water polo and will have a spectator capacity of 15,000 for swimming and 5,000 for diving.
3. The London Velopark, which will include a 6,000 seat indoor velodrome for track cycling and a 6,000 seat outdoor BMX racing track.
4. The Olympic Hockey Centre, with 15,000 and 5,000 seat arenas, which will host the hockey.
5. Three indoor arenas (Olympic Park Arenas 1-3), which will host basketball, fencing, handball, and the fencing and shooting disciplines of the modern pentathlon.
Olympic Park Arena 1 - basketball, modern pentathlon
Olympic Park Arena 2 - handball
Olympic Park Arena 3 - fencing
6. The Olympic Village, with accommodation for all athletes and team officials (some 17,320 beds in total). After the games the village will become a district of the Stratford City development, a multi-billion pound development project on the former railway goods yard to the east of the Olympic Park. (Accredited technical officials—referees, umpires, etc.—will be housed in hotel space in London Docklands).
7. The Olympic Press and Broadcast Centres.
8. A tennis training centre.
The River Zone will feature five main venues in the Thames Gateway area straddling the River Thames
1. The ExCeL Exhibition Centre, for boxing, judo, table tennis, taekwondo, weightlifting, and wrestling. Four separate arenas will be used with capacities between 6,000 and 10,000.
2. The O2 arena in The O2(formerly the Millennium Dome) and 3. The Greenwich Arena, for badminton, basketball, and gymnastics. The O2 arena should host around 20,000 spectators with the temporary arena holding 6,000.
4. Greenwich Park, for equestrianism.
5. The Royal Artillery Barracks, for shooting.
The Central Zone will be formed out of all the remaining venues within Greater London. They are quite widely spread across central and West London:
Wembley Stadium for the football finals.
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club at Wimbledon for tennis.
Lord's Cricket Ground for archery.
Regent's Park for road cycling. The park was also the proposed venue for the dropped baseball and softball events.
Horse Guards Parade for beach volleyball.
Hyde Park for the triathlon.
Earls Court for the volleyball.
Outside Greater London
Broxbourne, Hertfordshire for canoe/kayak slalom
Dorney Lake, Buckinghamshire, for rowing and canoe/kayak flatwater.
The Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, in Portland Harbour, Dorset on the south coast of England, will be used for the sailing events. It is around 120 miles (192 km) from central London.
The earlier stages of the football competition will be played at football stadia around the United Kingdom including
Hampden Park in Glasgow
Millennium Stadium in Cardiff
Old Trafford in Manchester
St James' Park in Newcastle
Villa Park in Birmingham
The Olympic village will have 17,320 beds and provide each athlete with 16m² floor space.
Each apartment will have a TV, internet access, and a private courtyard.
The dining hall will cater for 5,500 athletes at a time.
The aim is for 90% of venues to be served by three or more forms of public transport.
There will be two major park and ride sites off the M25 with a combined capacity of 12,000 cars, within 25 minutes of the Olympic Park.
There are 9,000 planned park and ride spaces to be made available at Ebbsfleet where spectators can board a 10-minute javelin service to the Olympic Park. This is the same station where continental spectators travelling by Eurostar will join the Olympic Javelin to the Olympic Park.
It is predicted that on event days 78% of spectators are likely to travel from within London and 22% from the rest of the UK and Europe.
Organisers estimate 80% of visitors and staff of the Games will use rail services to reach the Olympic Park.
Low or no-emission vehicles will be used to transport Olympic athletes and officials.
See www.london2012.com - the official website for the London Olympics
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