London 2012 Olympics & Paralympic Games

Two years to go… July 26 - August 1, 2010

Interview with Lord Coe Birmingham ready to host Jamaica Have you got what it takes to be a Games maker? Lavon’s a 2012 trailblazer

Make It Your Games

Interview with Lord Coe

London 2012 Olympic Games Special

23

Birmingham ready to host Jamaica Have you got what it takes to be a Games maker? Lavon’s a 2012 trailblazer

INSIDE:


By Rodney Hinds

IF I’M honest I still can’t believe that the greatest show

on earth is arriving in my manor in two years time.

It was July 6 in 2005 that the Interna-tional Olympic Com-mittee (IOC) awarded the London Bid with the rights to host the Games of the XXX Olympiad.

Do you remember where you were when the announcement was made? I do.

I was in an offi ce in Brixton when life seemed to change; was the Olympics re-ally coming to East-enders?

Once the heart had stopped pumping with unabated excite-

ment reality kicked in – and has done so ever since.

Roads that I used to walk, run and cy-cle down have been closed or dug up. I re-member the walk that me and my mother used to make from our home in Hackney Wick to Stratford via the ever so long Car-penters Road.

The said road is now closed and is now very much part of the ever changing Olympic Park land-scape.

The East End of London is forever changing and some locals have voiced their displeasure at the upheaval. But not me.

Yes, there has been inconvenience but it

should be worth it. After all hosting the Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime oppor-tunity.

Hackney, accord-ing to some [those that have never even lived there] is often much maligned. But for me it was home for the best part of three decades, and no matter where I live in the future, Hackney will stay close to my heart.

When the Olympic invasion lands on these shores, no doubt they will make their way to Mare Street in the heart of the bor-ough.

Mare Street houses iconic buildings such as the Town Hall and Hackney Empire, the home of east London

entertainment.I’d like to thank the

British Olympic Asso-ciation, who had been working on the bid

since 1997, for their efforts. Without their hard work Hackney would not be full of anticipation.

I covered the 2002 C o m m o n w e a l t h Games in Manchester and that was a hoot; but in two years time

the premier league of multi-events will be within reach.

Ironically the media centre for 2012 is sit-uated on the site of a nightclub called She-nola’s which this cor-respondent frequented once or twice!

It will be interesting to see how, for ex-ample, east London’s transport copes with increased numbers.

Public transport, an aspect of the proposal which scored poorly for the bid, will see numerous improve-ments, including the London Underground and the new “Olympic Javelin” service.

The football World Cup pre-tournament was tainted by stories of crime and violence, something that Hack-

ney can relate to.Sadly the celebra-

tions held once Lon-don was announced as 2012 host were partly silenced the day after the announcement of London’s win when the city suffered from a terrorist attack.

The July 7 London bombings shut down the public transport system and killed 52 people, injuring hun-dreds more.

There was no con-fi rmed link between the IOC decision and the attack.

Hackney, arguably the ultimate melting pot of the East End, prepares daily to wel-come the world.The rest of the world will fi nd it a fascinating and intriguing expe-rience.

East end ready to embrace the world

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24

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NO MAJOR sports event can seek to ex-

ist and run smoothly without the effort of volunteers and Lon-don 2012 will be no different.

To that, London 2012 recently an-nounced plans to re-cruit passionate and inspirational volun-teers for the Olympic Games and Paralym-pic Games

With two years to

go until the London 2012 Games, the Lon-don Organising Com-mittee of the Olym-pic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) has plans to recruit up to 70,000 volunteers for the London 2012 Games.

In the biggest post-war volunteer recruitment campaign in the UK’s history, LOCOG will be look-ing for dedicated and inspirational people

representative of the diversity of London and the UK to apply for a wide variety of volunteer roles.

Sebastian Coe, Chair of LOCOG, said: “London 2012 needs brilliant volunteers to help us deliver a great Olympic and

Paralympic Games. Our volunteers will be called Games Makers to refl ect the important role they will play in staging the 2012 Games. The programme to fi nd our Games Makers will launch on July 27, 2010 and I urge

anyone that is inter-ested to come to our website »from the day onwards to fi nd out everything they need to know about volun-teering in 2012.”

There are two types of Games Maker roles, specialists in areas such as medi-

cal services, sport or press operations and generalists, with roles ranging from specta-tor assistants, uni-form distributors and ticket checking.

In addition to these volunteer roles being recruited by LOCOG, the Mayor of London will shortly announce plans for the recruit-ment of London Vol-unteers, stationed at key transport hubs, at visitor attractions, and on the streets of the capital to make sure all visitors to London get the best possible welcome during the Games.

With recruitment starting exactly two years before the Lon-don 2012 Games, key dates for the applica-tion process are:

• July 27, 2010: ap-plications open for pre-identifi ed ap-plicants for special-ist sport, press op-erations, anti-doping and medical roles and members of a wide range of disability specialist organisa-tions. This is also an opportunity for those interested in the gen-eralist roles to fi nd out if they have what it takes to be a Games Maker via a dedi-cated section on the London 2012 web-site. Recruitment also starts on this date for the Mayor’s London Volunteers scheme.• September 15, 2010: applications open to the public for generalist roles and continue for special-ist roles.

LOCOG has also confi rmed that up to 1,500 of the Games Maker roles will be made available for those under the age of 18 through the ‘Young Games Maker’ programme that will be unveiled in July 2011.

The role of vol-unteers has been in-tegral throughout Olympic history. Lon-don pioneered the use of volunteers in the 1948 Games which saw the fi rst offi cial use of unpaid mem-bers of the public to help with the Games.

For information on volunteering roles and the application process, please visit www.london2012.com/volunteering

You Can Be A Games Maker

VOLUNTEER EFFORT: Vital to 2012 Olympic

25

STRICTLY READY FOR THE GAMES: Alesha Dixon at the Games Maker launch


Are we on track for the Olympics?We are on track and, just as important, we’re on budget as well which always helps. But certainly we’re pretty much where we would want to be at this stage. In the organising com-mittee we continue to raise good sums of money which is really important because

this has been a very diffi cult market place and its discretion-ary spend is always the most vulnerable spend when you’ve got a tricky economy. And of course on the infrastructural side the venues, many of which will be com-plete next year, ready for us to the start the hard work of turning them into Olympic

venues. And of course the regeneration of east London is in large part completed.

Time seems to be fl ying by very, very quickly, doesn’t it?It’ll be here in a blink of an eye. I mean it was barely fi ve years ago, it seems barely credible. It was fi ve years ago that you and I we’re sitting in

here talking about what are the fi rst things you’re going to do. We’ve now got an organisation with over 600 people in it.

Next year we’ll have doubled our num-bers, we’ll be 1,200. We’re recruiting vol-unteers, we’ve had our ticket sign up,

designed the mascots. This year we’ve got a lot of volunteer work around the specialists and then the general-ists so there’s a lot of

work carrying out at a pace.

One of the key-words from the out-set was diversity. How happy or not, are you that that ticket is still a win-ning one?I’m very happy. There are always challenges, of course there are. What was my tem-plate? I wanted the organising committee to refl ect the creativ-ity and diversity of both London and the United Kingdom and I think in large part we’ve done that. Is there more work to

do? Yep, there is. You don’t do these things overnight but I do think that we’ve made a sizeable contribu-tion and actually, in some cases, there are organisations that are monitoring us in this area that are not as diverse as our own.

What would you say to anyone who didn’t feel that they were a part of these Games but truly wanted to be?I would say please don’t feel like that because actually, for

On track and on budget for the greatest show on earthRodney Hinds caught up with the man charged with delivering a fi rst class Olympics, Lord Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG)

Cont on page 27

26

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: The Olympic Stadium

OR G A N I S E R S OF London 2012 have an-

nounced that over fi ve million children and young people from around the world are benefi ting from the London 2012 Games through the inter-national legacy pro-gramme, Internation-al Inspiration.

International In-spiration is the result of the promise made in 2005 to use the

London 2012 Games to reach young peo-ple around the world and connect them to the inspirational power of the Games so they are inspired to choose sport. It aims to provide high-qual-ity physical education, sport and play oppor-tunities to children and young people around the world. The aim is to reach 12 million children in 20 counties by 2012. International

Inspiration is already changing the lives of young people in 13 countries – Azerbaijan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Jordan, India, Ma-laysia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Palau, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey and Zambia.

Schools in the UK are also celebrating Olympic Day and their link to International Inspiration. Ivybridge Community College

and St Lukes Science and Sports College are both linked to schools in Nigeria and will be welcoming teachers on an offi cial visit.

St Lukes will be hosting an evening of Sporting Excellence, which Olympic Silver medallist Miriam Bat-ten will attend. Stu-dents will explain what inspires them about International Inspira-tion and the London 2012 Games.

International Inspiration


me, that’s not born out of ex-perience. What do you want to get out of the Games? Exactly what you want to get out of the Games? Whether it’s vol-unteering, whether it’s about sports participation, Olympic and Paralympics, whether it’s about looking at the cultural and creative platforms that we’re providing off the back of the things like our open weekend, the cultural Olym-pics – these are all very im-portant. We never said that this was just uniquely about sport, although sport obvi-ously sits at the heart of the project. I wanted to inspire an-other generation of architects, website designers, physical education teachers, coaches, mentors – that’s what I want-ed to see of the Games and I’m experiencing that in quite a profound way.

What sort of vibe are you getting from around the world and the rest of the country about London’s Games?Very good, very good. Some of the highest approval rat-ings we have for these Games are not in London. Northern Ireland for instance has con-sistently returned the highest approval ratings. Maybe that’s because of Mary Peters, maybe

that’s because in smaller com-munities Olympic feats remain longer in the collective mem-ory than other things. But I’m noticing, with two years to go, people are really beginning to get excited. I guess what we’re really saying now to London-ers and beyond is this is the time for you to start planning your Games. Don’t leave it another year because you’ll have missed the opportunity to volunteer, you’ll have pos-sibly missed the opportunity to get tickets so think about what you’re going to do now to make the Games successful for you. How are you going to

get involved?

The volunteering pro-gramme will get underway very shortly. That’s an ex-citing facet of the Games. Well you know as well as I do we’ve witnessed the im-portance and the quality of

volunteers in any number of ways but the difference be-tween a good and a great Games is the quality of vol-unteers. Now I don’t have any doubt at all when we’ve se-lected volunteers both special-ists and generalists. We need up to 50,000 for the Olympic and Paralympic Games and I think that we’re going to have the best-trained volunteers in the world.

In terms of the challenges, how do you handle them and has your glorious ath-letics career helped you to deal with some of those?

In a funny sort of way there is a direct analogy with what I use to do and what I do now and that’s working in four-year cycles. As a competitor, you set out with a very clear view of what you need to do over a four-year cycle to get into an Olympic Games in great shape. It’s pretty much what we’ve done here and what are analogies for? Train-ing and testing. There’s noth-ing you want to confront in a race that you haven’t been thrown a thousand times on the training track. So that’s very important.

There isn’t a typical day for you now, is there?The diary is long. Today is a good example. I started at 8 o’clock this morning with a media breakfast and I will fi n-ish probably at about quarter to 11 this evening with a spon-sors supper.

East London is an area that I know very well. Do you get a sense that the community is taking part?Yes, I do. There’s more work to

do, there’s no question about that and we need to do it and we shouldn’t be coy about that. There is more work to do. We’ve got to excite communi-ties that may not automati-cally get sport but I do think whether your community gets

sport or not, you will recog-nise that this is a big party opportunity and lots of things off the back of it. Look at the London Marathon. The Lon-don Marathon passes through communities that you don’t obviously associate with sport and marathon running and yet there are communi-ties that are often out on the pavement 10 or 12 deep sup-porting the runners, so I think that London gets this. One of the great advantages we have is the extraordinary diversity of the city. You’ve got 300 different communities, 200 different languages spoken.

People talk about the Olympic village; I’d make a strong case to say the Olympic village is already here!

I get a very strong sense, as far as you’re concerned, that some sort of proactiv-ity by the community is re-quired in order for them to feel that they are apart of the Games.Yeah, absolutely. I want every team visiting these Games from overseas to feel that they’re performing in front of a home crowd. In particular in east London. It has such an extraordinary melting pot, such an extraordinary group of communities. I think we can do this in a really spec-tacular way.

What’s amongst your top priority wishes come the opening ceremony?Well clearly that we deliver a great Games that makes peo-ple proud and happy to have been involved in it but funda-mentally makes them proud that we said something about ourselves as a nation, which

is really important, that we continue over the next two years to make great progress, over the venues, the village and the landscaping, that we go on building really robust, secure relationships – that’s what the Games is based on, that the Paralympic Games are recognised as being inte-grated but different and that’s important and that we go on building the fan base exciting people to want to be a part of this whether it’s sport or not.

Do you sometimes pinch yourself that this is actu-ally happening and that you’re the man with his fi nger on the pulse?I’m just so pleased to be a part of a team delivering this. I was lucky to be a competi-tor, lucky to go to the Games, lucky to be asked to be a part of the team bidding, lucky to have won and privileged to be here. What else would I want to do at this stage with a Games in my own backyard? I’d want to be involved in it, which is fantastic.

Cont from page 26

“We never said that this was just uniquely about sport”

“We’ve got to excite

communities”

HOPEFUL: Lord Coe (top, left)INSIDE STORY: Artist’s impression of the Olympic Stadium (top)LEADER OF THE PACK: Coe in his racing days (above)PERFECT FIT: At the London 2012 site (right)

27


THE PARALYM-PIC Games take place on Au-

gust 29 - September 9 2012.

The idea for the Paralympic Games came from German neurologist, Sir Lud-wig Guttmann, who organised a sports event for soldiers in-jured in World War II at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Bucking-hamshire in 1948.

In 1949 he said: “Maybe one day there would be Olympics for the disabled.” In 1952 Dutch athletes partici-pated and the fi rst in-ternational games for athletes with a dis-ability took place.

The Paralympic Games are the world’s

second largest sports event after the Olym-pic Games. In 1952 two nations and 130 athletes took part. In 1960 400 athletes from 23 nations par-ticipated with med-als presented in 57 events. Britain fi n-

ished second behind Italy. In London in 2012 4,200 athletes from 160 countries are expected to attend with 471 medal events on the programme.

Rome, in 1960, was the fi rst host city to use its Olympic ven-

ues for the Paralympic Games. 5,000 spec-tators watched the opening ceremony.

In 2012 up to 80,000 spectators will watch the opening ceremony on August 29.

Among the 20

sports at the Paralym-pic Games are some well known ones, like swimming and athlet-ics, as well as more unusual ones like Boccia and Goalball.

Boccia is a sport open to athletes with cerebral palsy. The

aim is to propel a set of coloured balls clos-er to the white ‘mark-er’ ball or jack than your opponent, so not unlike ‘petanque’ or French ‘boules’.

Great Britain won its fi rst ever Boccia team gold medal at

the Beijing Paralym-pic Games in 2008.

Goalball is for ath-letes who are blind or visually impaired. The object is to roll the ball into the oppo-nent’s goal while the opposing team tries to block the ball with their bodies.

Bells located inside the ball help play-ers locate the ball’s whereabouts. Because of the unique nature of the game total si-lence is required in-side the venue when play is in progress.

Rowing is the new-est sport on the Para-lympic programme. The fi rst Paralympic competition was at Beijing in 2008.

There are fi ve dif-

ferent disability groups in the Para-lympic Movement. These are:

a. Amputee�b. Cer-ebral Palsy�c. Visual impairment�d. Spinal cord injuries�e. And a group called ‘Les Au-tres’ which includes those who don’t fi t into the other groups, e.g. dwarfi sm.

“Para” means “alongside” – so “par-allel” to the Olympic Games. At London 2012 20 sports will be contested over 11 days of competition. There will be 6,000 media and broadcast-ers watching, 1,200 technical offi cials en-suring fair play and a total of 1.5 million tickets on sale.

VISION OF AN OLYMPICS FOR THE DISABLED COMES TRUE

History of the ‘Parallel’ Games28

HAVING A BALL: Wheelchair basketballers ONE GOAL: Goalball participants get down to action

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7 TO WATCH IN 2012

USAIN BOLT: Unquestionably the face of athletics, Bolt waltzed to victory in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay at the last Ol-ympics, setting world records in each event. In 2009, the charismatic Ja-maican lowered his own world records in the 100m and 200m, once again winning gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay at the World Champion-ships in Berlin. His jaw-dropping speed and electric personal- ity have lit up athletics and c o m e 2012, Bolt, 23, should be in his physical p r i m e . He is likely to garner m o r e s u p p o r t

then even the British athletes.

JESSICA ENNIS:

Britain’s best hope for a track and fi eld gold medal rests with Sheffi eld heptathlete Ennis. The reigning

indoor and outdoor world cham-pion will be the poster girl of 2012. The diminutive 24-year-

old is a one-woman athletics team as she is Britain’s fast-est female sprint hurdler and equal high jump na-tional record holder. Having

suffered stress fractures in her right foot prior to the

Beijing Games, her suc-cess at the 2009 World Championships was

a great achieve-ment consider-

ing that her tally of 6,731 points was 238 points

ahead of her nearest competitor.

CHRISTINE OHURUOGU: Ohuruogu is one of Britain’s best cham-pionship competitors of all time. The 400m runner is a Commonwealth, world and Olympic gold medallist. Her fi rst major success came at the 2006 Com-monwealth Games in Melbourne when she defeated heavily tipped favourite Tonique Williams-Darling. But an even bigger shock came two years later when she raced past American Sanya Richards in the home straight and won gold at the Olympics in Beijing. Dogged by her suspension for missing three out of competition drugs tests, Ohuruogu has been denounced as the face of 2012 but with the Olympics on her door step, a special gold medal winning perform-ance could be on the cards.

LOUIS SMITH: Only the second black male to win an Olympic gymnastic medal and the fi rst Briton to win an Olympic gymnast medal since 1928, the pommel horse specialist’s success has helped boost gymnastics popularity in Britain. At the age of 19, Smith, from Peterborough, won bronze on the pommel horse in Beijing. However, Smith was unable to recreate his bronze medal performance of Beijing at last year’s World Champi-onships that were held at the O2 Arena in London. Come 2012, the 21-year-old will be hoping for better luck in front of his home crowd.

SHANAZE READE: British cyclists contributed heavily to the 33 medals that Britain managed to claim in Beijing. Currently, the only black competitor from Britain’s elite cy-cling team is Reade.Hotly-tipped for gold in Beijing, BMX rider Reade crashed in the fi nal, caus-

ing her to lose but the 21-year-old is immensely talented. A two-time BMX world champion, Reade also races on the track and, alongside Victoria Pend-leton, won team gold at the World Championships in 2007 and 2008. Due to her track success, Reade has hinted that she could double up in 2012.

ACHIENG AJULU-BUSHELLDaughter to an English mother and a Kenyan father, Ajulu-Bushell is Britain’s fi rst black swimmer. The 16-year-old 100 metre breaststroker represented Kenya in last year’s World Champion-ships and at the Beijing Olympics but switched allegiances this year to swim for her country of birth. Currently rated fi fth fastest in the world at 50 metre breaststroke, Ajulu-Bushell looks set to race for Britain at both the European Championships and Commonwealth Games later this year. Rebecca Addling-ton was Britain’s only swimmer to win gold in Beijing and in 2012 Ajulu-Bush-ell will be under immense pressure to repeat Addlington’s winning perform-ances.

NATASHA JONAS:Women’s boxing will make its Olympic debut in 2012 and a lot of expectation is on the shoulders of Jonas to capture gold. The 26-year-old began boxing to keep fi t but has since transformed herself into a world-class pugilist, win-ning the Amateur Boxing Association championship fi ve-times and winning gold at the European Union Champion-ships last year. Currently ranked fourth in the world, light-welterweight Jonas could struggle to make the weight in two years time as there are only three weight categories for the women to compete at; the nearest one to hers be-ing the 10 stone weight limit of light-weight.

SEVEN TO WATCH IN

2012MAGNIFICENT SEVEN 2010

Achieng Ajulu-Bushell

Natasha Jonas Jessica Ennis

Louis Smith

Shanaze Reade

Christine Ohuruogu

Usain Bolt

30

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BIRMINGHAM WILL be welcoming the best in world athletics in 2012

prior to the Olympic Games coming to London.

Jamaica and the USA, two of the strongest track and fi eld teams and leading contenders for medals, will both be using the city as their pre-Olympic training camp.

In the Jamaica camp, for the likes of Usain Bolt, Shelly-Ann Fraser, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Melanie Walker this will be important prepara-tion as they look to defend their Olym-pic titles.

However, its not just about Jamaica’s top athletes prepar-ing for Olympic gold, there is also an athletics legacy pro-gramme aimed at inspiring the next generation of talent both in Birmingham and in Jamaica.

The athletes will meet with the local community, visit schools and help to inspire the people of Birmingham.

Both teams have identifi ed the excellent facilities that Birmingham has as the ideal preparation for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The Jamaican team will be

training in the south of the city at the University of Bir-mingham.

This will be at the Munrow Sports Centre, part of one of the country’s fi nest sports sci-ence and physical education units.

The USA, meanwhile, will be based at Birmingham Alexan-der Stadium in the north of the city.

B i r m i n g h a m City Council has worked in part-nership with Ja-maica Amateur Athletics Associa-tion to enable this to happen and the city is very proud

to be welcoming these ath-letes.

They are sure of a warm and hospitable welcome from the people of Birmingham, in particular the large Jamaican community who will make Bir-mingham a home from home when the athletes arrive.

Many local businesses and communities will be gearing up for the arrival of the Ja-maican team, stocking up on all manner of products, cuisine and everyday items to ensure the Jamaican team get the best preparations ahead of the Lon-don 2012 Olympics.

TRAINING VENUE: Birmingham University track (above)FLYING THE FLAG: Veronica Campbell-Brown (left)

Learning how to win gold at the UniversityTHERE’S A real buzz at the Uni-

versity of Birmingham these days. The Jamaican track and

fi eld team will base themselves at the University ahead of the London 2012.

This means both the Jamaicans, and USA track and fi eld team will fi ne-tune their Olympic preparations in Birmingham before bidding for gold medal glory in London.

After evaluating a range of compet-ing offers the University was a very strong and obvious partner in terms of the range of facilities on campus on what is a safe and leafy, green cam-pus.

Having the fastest men and women on the planet live and train at the Uni-

versity will undoubtedly inspire sports stars of the future.

Sport plays a prominent role in re-search and teaching across a unique range of sport and related disciplines, applying expertise in areas such as sport and exercise sciences, medicine, psychology, engineering, education, coaching, golf and business.

The University is one of the best in the UK in the British Universities and Colleges Sport championship and con-sistently fi nishes in the top three out of approximately 140 competing uni-versities.

“The media spotlight on Jamaica will showcase the University and our city. I’m confi dent we can develop a lasting legacy from this unique part-

nership,” says Zena Wooldridge, Di-rector of Sport for the University of Birmingham.

She added: “Having Usain Bolt and his team mates live and train on cam-pus will be a wonderful experience and I’m sure they will leave here well prepared and with many new friends.”

The University of Birmingham is very much an international university attracting over 4,000 students from 150 countries and around a quarter of its academic staff are overseas nation-als.

With a diverse range of cultures, views and experiences, the University is also a leading research institution, with a global reputation in areas as diverse as cancer studies, psychology, BEST: University of Birmingham site

Birmingham welcomes the best in world athletics

Two years to go… July 26 - August 1, 2010 31

“The athletes will meet with

the local community”


AS A student, study-ing sports science at Greenwich University, I

found myself with some spare time and wanted to use it in a positive way. I’ve always felt that if I’m not doing anything with my time, I’d rather use it productively and put it towards making something a success.

For that reason, I decided to volunteer at the London Youth Games this year, an event where 30,000 young London-ers compete on behalf of their boroughs across a number of fi eld and other sports, includ-ing athletics, tennis and indoor rowing . It is the largest youth sporting event in Europe. I knew it would be a great at-mosphere and really wanted to be part of it.

I started by helping out at the qualifi ers in February, where I provided a much-needed ex-tra pair of hands as there were only about fi fteen volunteers at that stage. I helped out with all aspects of the event includ-ing registration, media and refereeing. At the Disability Athletics in Mile End in June, I was asked to volunteer as an offi cial, which was fantastic. The organisers also gave me the opportunity to complete my Level One Athletics Offi cial Course.

By the time the fi nals in Crystal Palace came around in July there were hundreds of volunteers involved and the at-mosphere was amazing. When you see it all come together,

you feel so proud and such a sense of achievement- espe-cially speaking to the young athletes who have worked and trained so hard to get where they are. When they win or beat a personal best, you really share in their excitement and

enjoyment. It almost makes you feel like a proud parent!

It has always been a life-long ambition of mine to be involved with an Olympic Games so as soon as London won the bid for the 2012 Ol-ympic and Paralympic Games, I knew I needed to be part of it. This was a one-off event of a lifetime that I knew would probably never happen again in my generation. I checked the website constantly for any volunteering opportunities.

I applied and I’m now help-ing out as a Trailblazer in the LOCOG offi ces. I work in the venue team, as a document controller, which basically means I liaise with external companies and internal teams over documents and drawings related to the venues. It is a fantastic place to work and

the team are so helpful, so I am learning lots and never feel out of my depth. I started by volunteering one day a week, but while I have time off from university over summer, I am doing two days.

I defi nitely want to continue to be involved in the lead up to the 2012 Games. My role may vary, but I just have to be part of it. I can’t imagine the feeling when the Games actu-ally begin- I will be so over-whelmed and excited. I can imagine, when it is all over, I’ll look back and think did that really happen? Was I really part of that?

Volunteering isn’t always easy- you have to be commit-ted and dedicated, work long days and unpredictable. I think the toughest challenge is when things clash and you have to adapt or change your plans. It might be tempting to think that a volunteer role isn’t as important, but that’s not true – when you volunteer, you have to commit and give it the focus it needs.

I’d say to anyone think-ing of volunteering “make the decision and just go for it!”. For London 2012, there are a whole host of amazing roles that will challenge and inspire you. This is the chance to be part of something great and network with people from all over the world. Who knows where it will lead - after this, I might end up in Rio in 2016!

Lavon’s a trailblazer!

“As soon as London won the bid for the 2012

Olympic and Paralympic Games, I knew I needed to

be part of it”

1. TOMMIE SMITHTOMMIE SMITH is one of the standout memories of the Ol-ympic. At the 1968 Olympics, Smith won the 200m fi nal in 19.83 seconds – the fi rst time the 20 second barrier was broken. His Black Power salute with John Carlos atop the medal podium caused controversy at the time as it was seen as politicizing the Olympic Games. It remains a symbolic moment in the his-tory of the African-American

Civil Rights Movement.

2. LINFORD CHRISTIESPRINT KING Linford Chris-tie proved that world-class sprinting is not reserved only for young athletes by becom-ing number one in the 100m at the age of 30. He was the oldest man in history to win an Olympic gold medal, which he earned at Barcelona in 1992. More than 6’2” tall and weighing 170 pounds, Christie has also defi ed the

odds [similar to Usain Bolt] by having an amazingly fast start out of the blocks for a big man.

3. BOB BEAMONTHE LANKY Beamon immor-talized himself in sporting history when he destroyed the world and Olympic records in the long jump during the 1968 Games in Mexico City. From a sketchy upbringing replete with gangs, violence, and the threat of jail, Beamon

created quite a recipe for suc-cess. He took that negativity, mixed it with the rejuvena-tion of a second chance, add-ed intense determination, and turned it into the fuel that powered him across a sand pit in Mexico and earn him a gold medal.

4. JESSE OWENSALABAMA BORN Owens set a world record in the running broad jump (also called long jump) that stood for 25 years and won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. His four Olympic vic-tories were a blow to Adolf Hitler’s intention to use the

Games to demonstrate Aryan superiority.

5. TESSA SANDERSONTESSA HAS competed in an amazing six Olympic Games, which in itself is a record, which resulted in winning a gold medal in the javelin event in 1984. In the 1992 Barcelona Ol-ympics and competing in her 5th Olympics she fi n-ished an incredible 4th place in the fi nal. 2009 was the 25th anniversary of Tessa winning her Olympic gold medal at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

6. DALEY THOMPSONBORN FRANCIS Morgan Oyodélé Thompson, known commonly as Daley, this all-round athlete has been dubbed Superman. The former decathlete won the decathlon gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984, and broke the world record for the event four times. With four world records, two Olympic gold medals, three Com-monwealth titles, and wins in the World and European Championships, Thompson is often considered the greatest decathlete the world has ever seen. titles.

OLYMPIC MEMORIES1 2 3 4 5 6

32

”

“LAVON JACKSON

AGE: 20

ROLE: Trailblazer Document

Controller, Events

Volunteer at London

Youth Games

LIVES: Enfi eld, London


PUTTING FIVE coloured interlocking rings on a white background – the

distinctioce Olympic Games symbol - was conceived by Pierre de Coubertin.

Almost a century after the fl ag’s creation, the six col-ours, those of the rings (blue, yellow, black, green, red) and that of the background (white), still maintain their symbolism today.

The Olympic symbol, the fi ve interlocking rings, rep-resents the union of the fi ve continents and the meeting of the athletes of the world at the Olympic Games.

The Olympic Games took their name from the Greek city of Olympia and though there were important athletic com-petitions held in other Greek cities in ancient times, the Ol-ympic Games were regarded as the most prestigious.

The games were held every four years during August and September and the word “Ol-ympiad”, which referred to the

four year intervals between competitions, was commonly used to measure time. The fi rst documented Olympic champion was a man named Coroebus, a cook from Elis who won the sprint race in 776 BC.

Historians believe that the games had already existed for at least 500 years prior to that date. The Olympic Games originally featured only one event: a race called the “sta-de”, equal to a distance of about 210 yards.

By 728 BC two additional races had been added, com-

parable to the 400 metre and 1,500 metre races of the modern games. The Olympics came to include wrestling, boxing and the pentathlon, as well as specialized events for soldiers and heralds. It was only in 472 BC that the events were spread out over a period of four to fi ve days, previously they had all taken place on a single day.

Participation in the Olympic Games was originally limited to free born Greeks, but as Greek civilization was spread by the conquests of Alexan-der the Great, the Games drew

entrants from as far away as Antioch, Sidon and Alexan-dria.

After the Roman conquest of Greece in the second cen-tury BC, the Olympic Games suffered a decline in popu-larity and importance, but the Games persisted until AD 393, when the Roman emper-or Theodosius I ordered their abolition.

The idea of reviving the Ol-ympic Games originated with Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a 29 year old French aristocrat who fi rst publicly raised the issue in 1892.

At a conference on inter-national sport held in Paris in 1894, Coubertin managed to convince delegates from 49 organizations representing nine countries to vote in fa-vour of an Olympic revival.

The Games of 1896, 1900 and 1904 were loosely or-ganized and did not feature national teams produced by rigorous selection. The 1908 Games, held in London in a newly built 66,000 seat sta-dium, were the fi rst where the events were organized by the relevant authorities in each athletic discipline.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), headquar-tered in Lausanne, Switzer-land, sets and enforces Ol-ympic policy. The site of the games is chosen, usually at least six years in advance.

The Olympic Games: a sporting union SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES1896 - Athens, Greece 1900 - Paris, France 1904 - St. Louis, Missouri USA 1906 - Athens, Greece* 1908 - London, England 1912 - Stockholm, Sweden 1916 - Not held** 1920 - Antwerp, Belgium 1924 - Paris, France 1928 - Amsterdam, Holland 1932 - Los Angeles, California USA 1936 - Berlin, Germany 1940 - Not held*** 1944 - Not held*** 1948 - London, England 1952 - Helsinki, Finland 1956 - Melbourne, Australia 1960 - Rome, Italy 1964 - Tokyo, Japan 1968 - Mexico City, Mexico 1972 - Munich, Germany 1976 - Montreal, Canada 1980 - Moscow, Russia 1984 - Los Angeles, California USA 1988 - Seoul, South Korea 1992 - Barcelona, Spain 1996 - Atlanta, Georgia USA 2000 - Sydney, Australia 2004 - Athens, Greece 2008 - Beijing, China 2012 - London, England 2016 - Site not yet awarded

33

VISION: Pierre de Coubertin HQ: The IOC is based in Switzerland

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