17 March 2010The London 2012 Olympic Games will be opened at a spectacular Opening Ceremony on 27 July 2012 and will be followed by nearly three weeks of games, to close on 12 August 2012. The Paralympic Games will start on 29 August 2012 and the official closing ceremony will be on 9 September 2012.
For the Olympics, 204 countries will be taking part in 26 sports and 39 disciplines. For the Paralympics, 152 countries will be taking part in 19 sports. Overall, 22,000 competitors and officials, 70,000 volunteers, 11 million spectators and 4 billion television viewers will ensure that the London 2012 Games will be the greatest show on earth.
The main Olympic/Paralympic Park will be in Stratford, East London, with some sports at locations dotted across the UK (football, sailing, rowing, canoe slalom, mountain biking).
A UK Cultural Festival leading up to 2012 is planned and the Kent Coordinating Group for the London 2012 Olympics is working hard to ensure a lasting legacy from the games across the county:
Olympic Handover
In August, at the end of the Beijing Games, Sevenoaks District Council's Deputy Chairman, Cllr John Lankester, raised the Olympic Handover Flag outside the Council offices to celebrate Olympic Handover in the build up to 2012. The ceremony was just one of hundreds of similar events held across the country to mark the advent of the London Olympiad.
To celebrate the Olympic Handover on Sunday 24 August 2008, residents enjoyed free swimming at Edenbridge, Sevenoaks and White Oak Leisure Centres, with 699 free swims clocked up on the day. In the Olympic spirit, and to encourage greater take-up of swimming, 5,745 young people also took advantage of £1 swims over the summer holidays, funded by NHS West Kent and the Great Stonebridge Trust.
Pre-Games Training Camps
Sporting venues up and down the country will be playing host to the world's pre-eminent sporting talent in the lead up to 2012, as they have secured status as Pre-Games Training Camps. Kent, with excellent transport links to the main Olympic venues in central London and to mainland Europe, has secured more Pre-Games Training Camps than any other county.
The Sevenoaks District has three venues that are Pre-Games Training Camps. Brands Hatch, in West Kingsdown, will be a venue for cycling and Penshurst Off Road Circuit will host mountain bike training. Sevenoaks School is a training venue for a range of sports, including archery, athletics, basketball and fencing. The School has also secured status as a Paralympic training camp for archery, Paralympic athletics, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair rugby and wheelchair tennis.
To find out more about Pre-Games Training Camps, please click on the link.
Cultural Olympiad
The International Olympic Committee requires every Games to stage a cultural event, leaving it to the organising committee to decide the scale of the cultural celebration. The Cultural Olympiad is a four year celebration of community and culture designed to encourage the widest range of people across the whole of the UK to get involved in the London 2012 Games.
The UK's four year Cultural Olympiad was launched nationally on 26 September 2008. It has three official themes: Inspiring and Involving Young People, Creating a Legacy, and Celebrate London & the UK welcoming the World. The Cultural Olympiad is divided into three sections:
To find out more about Cultural Olympiad Ceremonies, Major projects and Inspire Mark projects, please click on the link. Please click on the link to find out more about the Inspire Mark.
Kent 2012 Campaign
The Kent Coordinating Group for the 2012 Games was created by Kent County Council to ensure that the legacy of the Olympics and Paralympics could be maximised for all Kent residents, businesses and visitors and to ensure that the Games can act as a catalyst to enable Kent to achieve better existing priorities.
The Kent Coordinating Group for the 2012 Games was established with eight sectoral task groups which have responsibility for different areas of the Kent Campaign for the 2012 Games: Arts, Communications and Media; Economic Development and Regeneration; Schools and Young People; Sport; Tourism; Transport; Volunteering.
To find out more about the Kent 2012 Campaign, please click on the link.
Volunteering for the Games
London 2012 will need to recruit around 70,000 volunteers. Specialist volunteers are required for with specific skills and qualifications, for example sports or medical training. General volunteers are needed to cover a huge range of tasks, from venue staffing and catering to helping at ceremonies and helping with language services. All London 2012 volunteers will be given training and are expected to attend training events. To find out more about volunteering to help at London 2012, please click on the link.
The "Kent eVent Team" is a partnership between Kent County Council and the voluntary sector in Kent, recruiting volunteers for sport, leisure and culture across Kent. The Kent event Team will develop a network of volunteers for the run up to London 2012 and these will remain in volunteering after the London Games have finished, to ensure the legacy of the Games in terms of volunteering.
Business Opportunities around the London 2012 Games
There are expected to be around 7,000 direct business contracts for the London 2012 Games and another 75,000 future business opportunities covering direct contractors and supply chains. London 2012 is ensuring that supply chains are open to small and medium sized companies (SMEs) through "CompeteFor". CompeteFor acts as a brokerage service between buyers throughout the London 2012 supply chain and potential suppliers. Businesses of any size can register on CompeteFor and apply for contracts. Please click on the link to find out more about CompeteFor and register to apply for London 2012 contracts.
Business Support Kent is funded by the South East England Regional Development Agency to support businesses in Kent to access CompeteFor opportunities and will support businesses from the registration step through to being published. To register with Business Support Kent's free information service, please click on the link.
Transport for the London 2012 Games
The official park and ride for the Olympic Park will be Ebbsfleet International station, just to the north of the Sevenoaks District. Trains from Ebbsfleet will take just under ten minutes to get to Stratford International station. London 2012 intends to offer any UK resident buying an Olympic ticket to receive free transport advice. Seamless ticketing for London residents is planned and Kent County Council is lobbying for this to be extended to Kent. For more information on transport options for London 2012, please click on the link.
Tourism and the London 2012 Games
Approximately 70% of the visitors to the London Games will be British and 30% will be from abroad. The benefits of the London 2012 Games are likely, therefore, to be seen in terms of tourist numbers. For each of the four years either side of the London 2012 Games, there is predicted to be a 2% increase in tourism income, equating to £ 324 million from 2008 to 2016.
Partners in the Kent Campaign for 2012 Games Tourism sectoral task group have identified priorities for tourism in Kent from the Olympics and Paralympics:
To find out more about tourism opportunities from the London 2012 Games, please click on the link.
Schools and the London 2012 Games
The official London 2012 education programme, Get Set, offers children and young people in the UK and around the world ways to get involved in London 2012. The Get Set education programme website features free schools' resources, including interactive games and inspirational videos.
The Kent Schools 20 in 12 Learning Programme is using the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games to inspire the delivery of schools' curriculum. It aims to make sure that all young people in Kent are involved in meaningful learning experiences that relate to the Olympic and Paralympic values. To find out more about the Kent Schools 20 in 12 Learning Programme, please click on the link.
Legacy of the London 2012 Games
It is expected that the London 2012 Games will have a lasting legacy right across the UK, in terms of culture, education, tourism, volunteering, and participation in sport and healthy activities.
Cultural events around the Olympics and Paralympics will showcase local diversity, bring greater cultural understanding between communities and bring the whole community together celebrating a great national event.
The official London 2012 education programme, Get Set, will allow young people in the UK and around the world to get involved with the Olympics, sparking their imagination and enthusiasm for learning. The Legacy will include ongoing links with young people in other countries, promoting better understanding of other cultures.
It is expected that London 2012 will generate additional hotel and bed and breakfast spaces throughout the country to accommodate the increased numbers of tourists both during and after the Olympics and Paralympics. It is expected that numbers of volunteers relating to sports and sporting activities will increase in the wake of London 2012. Greater numbers of people of all ages, from under 5s to the over 60s are expected to be more active, taking part in sport and other healthy activities.
In the Sevenoaks District, Sencio Community Leisure is committed to developing a community outreach programme, promoting healthy activities in the community. Sencio has an established sports development programme to encourage participation in sports and other active pastimes by all sections of the community. The creation of the get-active website, a free website for people, will allow community groups, clubs and other local providers in the Sevenoaks District to list, access and search sports and other activities. To access the free get-active healthy activities website, please click on the link.
Talent 2012 - Paralympic Potential
UK Sport is launching a nationwide talent search for Paralympic athletes that will launch on the 30th November and will run till the 15th January 2010. Its aim is to recruit athletes into specific sporting programmes in 2010.
Working in partnership with ParalympicsGB, the aim is to attract as many applications as possible for consideration for the British team at the 2012 Paralympic Games, to identify talent that can be fast-tracked to 2012 medal success against targeted sports. These athletes may not know that they qualify for the Paralympics, and many may already be in able-bodied programmes.
Working in partnership with LOCOG and ParalympicsGB, the campaign UK Sport will link activities which mark 1,000 days to the start of the Paralympics, which will take place on the 3rd December.
For more information, please click on the link for the UK Sport Talent 2012 website.
