Countdown to London

The days are quickly passing as the start of the London Olympics draws closer and closer. The 30th Summer Games will start July 27 with an elaborate launch ceremony called “The Isles of Wonder” with Oscar winner Danny Boyle as director and Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh to officially open the festivities.

Last Thursday, the Olympic Flame was lit at the Temple of Hera in the Ancient Stadium in Olympia. The traditional flame-lighting pays tribute to where the Olympics were initially held in about 776 B.C. For eight days, the Olympic Flame will be carried by runners in a torch relay all over Greece, including Crete, Piraeus, Thessalonica, Xanthi, Larissa and other towns. One of the torchbearers is 19-year-old Alex Loukos, a British national with Greek heritage. On Thursday, the torch will arrive in Athens for the Olympic Flame handover rites.

At the lighting ceremonies last Thursday, foreign office minister for the Olympics Jeremy Browne said, “Today is an exciting reminder that we are getting ever closer to the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. The historic route of the Olympic Flame shows how the Olympics unites people and countries and we are looking forward to welcoming the world this summer. The arrival of the torch in the UK on May 18 will generate excitement throughout the country as we head towards the opening ceremony on July 27.”

The handover will be attended by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal Anne, a former Olympic equestrienne, chairman of the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and gold medalist in the 1,500-meter distance at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics Lord Sebastian Coe, British Minister for Sport and Olympics Hugh Robertson MP and British Ambassador Dr. David Landsman.

The day after the handover, the torch will be flown to the Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall where a 70-day relay is set in the UK. Some 8,000 torchbearers will carry the Olympic flame over a distance of about 8,000 miles starting in Cornwall. The torch will visit Dublin on June 6 in its only appearance outside the UK. The research engine Wikipedia said the relay will focus on national heritage sites, locations and venues with sporting significance, key sporting events, schools registered with the Get Set School Network, green spaces and biodiversity, Live Sites (city locations with large screens), festivals and other events. At the end of the UK relay, the torch will be carried into the 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium for the start of the Summer Games on July 27.

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Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics and president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1896-1925, expressed the significance of the Olympic Flame when he said, “May joy and good fellowship reign and in this manner, may the Olympic torch pursue its way through ages, increasing friendly understanding among nations for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure.”

About 8.8 million tickets for the Olympics went on sale in March last year. Free events include road cycling, triathlon and marathon. Over 70,000 volunteers will be mobilized to make sure everything is in order during the Games which London is hosting for the third time after 1908 and 1948. Some 10,000 athletes from over 200 countries are converging to compete for medals in 26 sports and 39 disciplines. Women’s boxing will be introduced in the Olympic program for the first time since it was a demonstration sport in 1902 but on a limited scale of three weight divisions.

London beat Paris, 54-50, in the final round of the IOC voting in Singapore in 2005. Previously eliminated were Moscow, New York City and Madrid.

The composition of the Philippine delegation to London is still being finalized. Two slots are reserved for the mandatory sports of athletics and swimming. Lightflyweight boxer Mark Anthony Barriga has qualified while Tripartite Invitation Places (TIPs), formerly known as wildcard tickets, were given to skeet shooter Brian Rosario and judoka Tomohiko Hoshina.

Philippine delegation chef de mission Manny Lopez said yesterday the London organizers are allocating a budget of the equivalent of P1.7 Million for countries like the Philippines to send athletes for a one-month training in the UK before the Olympics. Barriga and a coach will be accommodated in a camp sanctioned by the AIBA, the international governing federation for amateur boxing, in Cardiff, Wales.

London has also extended a welcome to 11 Batang Pinoy athletes in the 14-15 age category to experience the Olympics via a two-week summer program where they will be based at St. Bede’s International School in the English countryside.

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“We are now on the very last lap and the finishing line is clearly in sight,” said British Ambassador to the Philippines Stephen Lillie in a speech during a program marking 100 days before the start of the Olympics. “London 2012 will showcase great sport, great culture, great business and deliver a great legacy for Britain. We will welcome the world to a country that we believe is one of the best places in which to live, work, visit, study and do business. We want you to join us in celebrating success, success on the track, on the field and in the pool but also success, we hope, in creating a legacy which endures long after the closing ceremony of the Paralympics in September.”

The Philippines has never captured an Olympic gold medal since its first participation in 1924. The closest to a gold were the silvers bagged by Anthony Villanueva in featherweight boxing in 1964 and Onyok Velasco in lightflyweight boxing in 1996.

But living the Olympic spirit by participating in the Summer Games has more meaning than winning a medal. Three-time Olympic track gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee once said, “The medals don’t mean anything and the glory doesn’t last … It’s all about your happiness, the rewards are going to come but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing.”