27 July 2012
Last updated at 11:44 GMT
The torch relay is on the last leg of its 70-day journey to the Olympic Stadium
The opening ceremony of the London Olympics is just hours away after seven years of preparations.
The three-hour spectacle in the Olympic Stadium will be viewed by a global TV audience of around a billion people.
The day of celebration began at 08:12 BST with a mass bell
ringing. Big Ben rang for three minutes for the first time since King
George VI's funeral.
Lord's cricket ground has turned away spectators trying to get in to watch archery amid confusion over ticketing.
The London 2012 website advertised the event's preliminary
rounds as "unticketed", which some members of the public interpreted as
open to the public.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
It's a great opportunity to show the world the best of Britain”
David Cameron
Prime minister
But Olympic organiser Locog said
it had not advertised or sold tickets for the ranking event and had
always made it clear preliminary rounds were not open to spectators.
South Korea later claimed the first two world records of London 2012 in the men's team and individual archery.
In other developments:
- Three people due to work as staff at an Olympic venue in
Newcastle were arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of immigration
offences following accreditation checks
- Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt narrowly avoided hitting a group of women with a handbell after it flew off the handle on HMS Belfast during the co-ordinated ringing - he called the moment a "classic"
- American First Lady Michelle Obama, who is in London to lead
the US delegation, told the US Olympic team at their Docklands training
camp "have fun, breathe a bit, but also win"
- International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge praised
the regeneration which has taken place in east London and said the
Games would have a "tangible legacy" with, uniquely, "no white
elephants"
- About 30 people are staging a "justice for Bhopal" protest at
the Olympic Park entrance - a reference to a 1984 gas leak disaster in
India - to object to Dow Chemical's sponsorship of the Games. Dow bought
the Union Carbide Corporation - whose subsidiary ran the Bhopal
pesticide plant - in 1999
- London taxi drivers who were to protest at Hyde Park Corner over their exclusion from Olympic traffic lanes have been banned by the Metropolitan Police
Meanwhile, the Olympic flame has arrived at City Hall on
the Queen's rowbarge Gloriana after first weaving through the maze at
Hampton Court Palace and being carried along the Thames on the final day
of the torch relay.
The flames's 70-day nationwide
journey ends with the lighting of the cauldron during this evening's
opening ceremony but the identity of the person who will take on the
honour remains a mystery.
The ceremony is expected to remain dry, but BBC weather
forecasters say the jet stream is moving southwards and there will be a
return to more unsettled and chillier conditions over the next few days.
BBC forecaster Krista Mitchell said Saturday would remain
mainly dry in the south, but showers were likely to affect the Games on
Sunday.
Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain was ready to welcome "the greatest show on earth".
Speaking in Downing Street, he said: "It's a great
opportunity to show the world the best of Britain, a country that's got
an incredibly rich past but also a very exciting future.
"Someone asked me yesterday what face of Britain do we want
to put forward - is it Blur or the Beefeaters? - and frankly it's both."
'Wave of excitement'
The chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority, Dennis Hone, said he was thrilled the big day was finally here.
He told BBC Radio 5 live: "When you look around at the park,
you look at the venues, the 100 hectares of landscaping, the 2,000
trees, all the plants in bloom, it's looking fantastic. It's going to be
a great day, it's going to be a great 17 days of sport."
US First Lady Michelle Obama has given her own personal good luck message to Team USA
Mayor of London Boris Johnson told the programme: "What's so
amazing is just the wave of excitement seems to pass from person to
person like some benign form of contagion. Everybody is getting it."
Organisers of Oscar-winner Danny Boyle's opening ceremony
have released a video clip giving a sneak preview, featuring groups in
colourful stage outfits dancing to Tiger Feet by 1970s rock group Mud
and cyclists with wings pedalling along to Come Together by the Beatles.
Europe's largest bell will ring inside the Olympic stadium at
21:00 BST at the start of the £27m extravaganza, featuring a cast of
10,000 volunteers and said to be a quirky take on British life.
Some 15,000 square metres of staging and 12,956 props will be
used, and the event will boast a million-watt PA system using more than
500 speakers.
The crowd of about 80,000 will include the Queen and a host of dignitaries and celebrities.
As late as Thursday night, Games organisers said that the
ceremony had not sold out and tickets in the two highest price
categories - costing £2,012 and £1,600 - were still available.
The Queen and Prince Philip will host a Buckingham Palace
reception for heads of state and government and an opening ceremony
celebration concert featuring Snow Patrol, Stereophonics, Duran Duran
and Paolo Nutini will be held in Hyde Park.
More than 10,000 athletes from 204 nations will take part in
the London Olympics. Some £9bn of public money has been spent on staging
the Games.
Coverage of the opening ceremony starts on BBC One at
19:00 BST and Radio Five Live from 18:00 BST. UK users can also watch it
via the BBC News website.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário