17 Interesting 2012 Olympics Facts That Are Worth Knowing

The Olympics is one of the magnificent sporting events conducted on an international scale.

The Olympics unites the best athletes representing their countries and unifies the fans and viewers watching the games. The entire globe watches the same event together, which makes it unique.

Every enthusiastic athlete on Earth desires to represent their nation and perform exclusively well in the Olympics and hopes to set a world record.

Some of the best characteristics of the Olympics are mental toughness, competitiveness, excellence, hard work, ethic, spontaneous sports intelligence, the quality of coaching, hope, the capability to focus without getting distracted, aiming for the perfect performance, and most importantly, being optimistic.

One such all-time significant event that happened was the London 2012 Olympic games that took place in East London, Great Britain. London became the first city to conduct three modern Olympics. Keep reading further for fun facts about London 2012 Olympics.

If you want to read more such interesting facts, you can also refer to 20th-century facts and 21st-century facts on our Kidadl website.

2012 Olympics: Location, Nations, Number Of Athletes

The 2012 summer Olympics was a diverse-sport event held on an international level from July 27, 2012, to August 12, 2012, in London. The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic sports events were held in multiple venues using existing facilities, and some venues were remodeled, keeping the sustainability goal in mind. 

Some events were held in renowned places like Hyde Park and Horse Guards Parade. Few new provisions from previous events were reused in these Olympics. On the other side, the rest of the locations were resized. Locations were divided into three zones in Great London: the river zone, the Olympic zone, and the central zone. 

Additional venues were provided in the suburbs of Greater London, like Portland National Sailing Academy and Weymouth. London was adopted as the host city, winning bids over Madrid, New York City, Moscow, and Paris.

London took pride in being the first city to host the modern Olympics three times. The East Village in Stratford was converted into an Olympic village for the games.

The city also hosted the summer games in 1908 and 1948. The primary plan was to construct five new indoor arenas, four to be constructed in Olympic park and the other in the river zone. It was reduced to two in order to cut down the cost. The Olympic Park was later named Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The Olympic torch relay event took place from May 19-July 27, 2012, prior to the games. Schemes for the relay began from 2010-11, followed by the announcement of the torch-bearer selection on May 18, 2011. 

10,768 athletes participated in London 2012 Olympics from various countries, the number is much higher than the 1948 Summer Olympics conducted in London and the 2002 Commonwealth games conducted in Manchester. 2012 Olympics became the biggest multi-sport event to be conducted in the United Kingdom ever.

The women's football was the first event conducted at the Millennium Stadium on July 25, accompanied by an opening ceremony on July 27. Sailing events were conducted in Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy. The football matches were performed at multiple grounds across the UK.

Women's boxing was conducted for the first time, and 36 women participated in it. Every sport had female competitors in London 2012 Olympic games. Katie Taylor from Ireland won the gold medal in the lightweight category women's boxing.

The London Olympic games were exalted for their planning and execution. Volunteers like the British military and the high spirits of the public largely accelerated the entire mood and feeling of the games. Danny Boyle directed the opening ceremony and received widespread appreciation.

Country That Won Maximum Events

The cultural Olympiad included numerous events and programs. There were almost 500 programs distributed over four years over the entire United Kingdom.

A large number of Olympic athletes from 204 countries have come to London carrying their sports equipment and enthralled the audience. Athletes from the United States have won most of the events and bagged numerous medals in London 2012 Olympics.

Nevertheless, London was the first city to host the modern Olympics three times, making history. Unique sporting events like mountain biking, track cycling, BMX, and beach volleyball, wrestling were also included in London 2012 Olympic games.

There were two logos for London 2012 Olympic games, one for the bidding process, and the other logo was used for marketing for the games.

Kino designed the bid logo, and the design was in a ribbon shape with yellow, blue, green, black, and red strips curling through the text 'LONDON 2012', shaping itself in the form of river Thames which is in East London.

On the other side, the main logo, which was published on June 4, 2007, was made by Wolf Olins with the depiction of the number 2012 with the Olympic rings submerged within the zero.

The official Olympic mascots for the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics Games were disclosed on May 19, 2010. The countdown clock was disclosed 500 days prior to the games in Trafalgar square.

The clock was fragmented into pieces the following day but got fixed later. It had two faces representing the Paralympic count down as well. The countdown for the Olympics started with a ceremony followed by lighting the Olympic flame in Olympia, Greece.

Country That Won Maximum Gold Medals

'Inspire a generation,' was the 2012 summer Olympics official motto or United Kingdom's motto for Olympics, was particularly picked up to feature the organizer's commitment to energizing the world, incorporating the upcoming generations, to participate in sporting events enthusiastically.

The United States won the most medals, grabbed the maximum gold medals (46), and won the most overall medals. It stood at the number one position on the medal table with overall 104 medals.

China finished at second place, bagging 91 medals overall (38 gold medals). Great Britain took up the third position winning 65 medals in total with 29 gold medals, sprinting faster than Russia, which bagged the fourth position winning 67 overall medals (20 gold medals).

85 countries grabbed medals, and 54 countries won at least one gold medal. Michael Phelps from the US was the most felicitated Olympic athlete, who won his 22nd medal in the 2012 year's games. He won four gold medals and two silver medals. 

The men's basketball competition in London 2012 Olympics started on July 29 and concluded on August 12. The United States grabbed the gold medal by defeating Spain with a score of 107-100.

46 athletes from Russia were disqualified from London 2012 Olympics due to doping issues; as a result, they lost 14 medals, including five gold medals.

The police took care of the security with 10,000 officers and the support of 13,500 armed forces members. Naval and air resources were also utilized, with ships situated in the Thames.

Surface-to-air missiles and Typhoon fighter jets were installed as a part of the security work called the 'Operation Olympics' by the Ministry of Defense, which was the massive security operation to have been enforced by Great Britain ever.

How many people came to the 2012 Olympics?

In the 2008 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, the Olympic flag was carefully delivered from the Mayor of Beijing to the Mayor of London. A month succeeding the event, the Olympic and Paralympic flags were jacked up outside the London city hall.

Organizers predicted around 8 million tickets would be within easy reach for the London Olympic summer games, and about 1.5 million tickets were available for Paralympic games. Free events like marathons, triathlons, and road cycling were also conducted. Also, unconventional sports like sailing events were priced for the first time in Olympic history.

More than 7,000,000 tickets were sold, and the Olympic stadium was crowded with enthusiasm, cheers, and exaltation. People applied for the tickets by following the IOC rules. At the same time, the European Union residents had the liberty of applying for the tickets in any EU country.

In Great Britain, the ticket cost varied from £20 for small events to £2012 for the big-budget seating at the opening ceremony. The demand for tickets was high, and demand was three times the availability of the tickets.

Their procedure of applying tickets was widely criticized for its complexity, and half of the people who applied did not receive the tickets.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly fun facts for everyone to enjoy!

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