Interesting Facts About The London Olympics-2012

1. The games cost almost $15 BILLION. The final estimated cost for the Olympic games was increased from £2.4 billion to £9.3 billion. That's 3.8x the cost! The reason for this was because London had to invest heavily in the Olympic venues and other infrastructure expenses. In fact, the Contingency Fund, for any unexpected expenses, was set at £2.7 billion. That means that the unexpected costs ended up being costlier than they originally expected the whole thing to be


2. Even though Adidas is the official apparel sponsor, Nike features prominently in the games! Not Nike the brand, but rather the Goddess of Sport. She's going to be engraved in front of every medal given out during the games. Ironically, Nike just came out with an ad poking fun at the Olympics. Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hEzW1WRFTg&feature=player_embedded

3. The games might include a Spice Girls reunion. The Olympic games will officially end on August 12. It's traditional that the mayor of the host city hands over the games to the mayor of the next host city (in this case, Rio de Janeiro). It's heavily rumored that the closing ceremony will feature the first Spice Girls reunion since 2008. 


4. The Olympics will leave London with its largest piece of public art. The ArcelorMittal Orbit is a 377-foot observation tower that was built in the Olympic park and is supposed to be a permanent fixture of London, long after the Olympics are gone. The design so far seems to be polarized, some have said it's striking and daring and Olympian in its ambition. Others say it looks like a roller coaster collapsing onto itself. 


5. London will be the first city to host the Olympics for a third time. They hosted the Olympics in 1908 and 1948. Although this distinction is only a technicality. Athens has also hosted 3 Olympic games, but one of them, the 1902 Athens Intercalated Olympic Games weren't counted as an official Olympic event. 


6. More than half the world will be watching. The organizers of the game estimate that about 4 billion people will tune in to watch the games. 


7. There's going to be over 20,000 members of the media covering the event. The International Broadcast Centre that will house them during the games is huge: the size of six full size football pitches.


8. The London Olympic stadium is the lightest stadium ever built. Not just that, but they also used 2,500 tons of steel tubing that was recycled from old gas pipelines. That's a pretty green stadium!


9. The opening ceremony is based on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. The organizers have named the ceremony "Isles of Wonder" and it is taken from a speech given by Caliban in Shakespeare's The Tempest. Academy award winner Danny Boyle will serve as the artistic director. Over 20,000 volunteers are working on it!


10. Girl Power: The 2012 Olympics will have 2 significant milestones for female athletes. It's the first Olympics where every country has at least 1 female athlete. Also, Female Boxing was included this year, which means that every sport in the games will have male and female competitors.

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