One year to go, Rogge invites world's athletes to London
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Xinhua, July 28, 2011
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International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge speaks on at the "London 2012 - One Year To Go" celebration at Trafalgar Square in central London, Britain, July 27, 2011. London celebrated the one year countdown to the London 2012 Olympic games here on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Zeng Yi) |
IOC President Jacques Rogge officially invited athletes all over the world to come to the London Games with one year to go until the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
"On 6 July 2005, a dream was born when the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2012 Games to London," said Rogge who announced London winning the bid in Singapore six years ago. "The world's finest athletes began dreaming of competing in this magnificent city. As in 1908 and 1948, they knew they would be coming to the nation that invented modern sport and the concept of fair play.
"Today, their dreams come closer as we invite 202 national Olympic committees to the 2012 Games. The athletes will be ready, and so will London."
Before Rogge made his way to the stage at the crowded Trafalgar Square in central London, British diving sensation Tom Daley dived into the pool to unveil the Aquatic Centre in the Olympic Park in Stratford.
In front of a screaming crowd to do the first official dive in the Aquatics Centre, the 17-year-old former world champion said he was quite nervous.
As a big medal hope for Britain in 2012, Daley believed every Olympian dreamed about competing in home turf "but it never comes very often".
"It's great to think that that's what it's going to be like next year. It's just incredible, the amount of cheers and stuff. It's going to be awesome next year," said Daley.
The 269-million-pound Aquatics Centre is the sixth and final permanent venue to be handed over to organisers by the Olympic Delivery Authority as construction of infrastructure and venues is 88 percent complete right now.
Earlier this year, the Olympic Stadium, the Velodrome, the Handball Arena also in the Olympic Park have been completed on time and under budget, changing the skyline of the east London.
The medals to be awarded next year were also unveiled during the countdown ceremony while the LOCOG chairman Sebastian Coe hoped that seeing the design of the medals will be a source of inspiration for the thousands of athletes around the world who are counting down the year before they compete at the Games.
In the past 365 days, London 2012 achieved many highlights and milestones, including the launch of Games Maker volunteering programme with a quarter of a million applications for the 70,000 roles, the release of sport competition schedule seeing more than 300 events in 26 sports were divided into over 640 sessions.
So far, more than 3.5 million Olympic tickets have been sold and the search of the 8,000 torch bearers has been launched as Olympic Flame to travel across the UK for 70 days aiming to be within a one hour journey time of 95 percent of the population.
Although there are still concerns about the transportation and security during the Games, the mayor of London Boris Johnson was confident that London would be ready.
"Above all, people in London will be ready. See you in London in 366 days time," said the mayor.
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