The big day has finally arrived! At 9pm tonight the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games will begin and Her Majesty the Queen will officially open the 30th modern Olympiad. The flame, which began its journey in Athens, followed by a mammoth torch relay around the UK, will finally reach its destination and ignite the cauldron at the Olympic stadium...but who will be the lucky final torch bearer? This is just one of the many closely guarded secrets that will finally be unveiled tonight! One person who has been fortunate enough to attend a sneak preview of tonight's opening ceremony is Swansea Met's Andrew Campbell, Programme Director for Leisure, Tourism, Events and Sport Management. He had this to say about the impact of the 2012 Games and their legacy for the UK:
“As 4 billion people will be watching the opening Ceremony on Friday, the Games can rightly claim to be “the Greatest Show on Earth”. In tourism terms visitor numbers coming to London will increase by 13% over the next two weeks – but transport infrastructure will be stretched to cope with 500,000 spectators and 80,000 members of the “Olympic Family” travelling daily to specific events. Investment controversies aside ie is the cost of staging the Olympics, at £13 billion, justified? London and the rest of the UK will benefit significantly from the global exposure...so tourism benefits will be long term."
If you're interested to find out more about the Olympics why not take a look at our library website for lots of useful links and specialist databases such at Sport Discus...in the meantime, enjoy the show tonight! Good luck to all our Olympians!
No comments:
Post a Comment