GB put to pick strong team for London 2012 Olympics

GB put to pick strong team for London 2012 Olympics

Great Britain is set to be symbolized by at least 500 athletes at the London 2012 Olympics, an add to on the 311 sent to the Beijing games in 2008.

The development, which is subject to funding, was agreed at a meeting of the National Olympic Committee which also sets the qualifying criteria.

The BOA will set the selection criteria for Team GB after the International Olympic Committee and the individual sports' international federations release international qualification standards in the summer.

Olympic Stadium will use for Twenty20 cricket after the 2012 Games

Essex announced on Thursday that they were bearing in mind a joint offer with West Ham and Newham Council to turn the stadium in Stratford into a multi-sport venue capable of staging football, cricket and athletics.

The club would continue to play County Championship matches at their Chelmsford headquarters but would use the stadium as a 'festival ground' for Twenty20 matches.

UK's pre-Olympics increase shift to Loughborough

The BOA declared on Wednesday it would now stand its pre-Games training headquarters and its uniform distribution centre at Loughborough University, rather than Aldershot.

The army could not illuminate the crash the decision would have on Aldershot's multimillion pound sporting renewals. When the initial BOA deal was released, Aldershot was allegedly earmarked for a £400 million upgrade, including two new indoor arenas, a running track and hockey centre.

Olympics enhances London housing market prices

The residential property developer yesterday said full-year results will be "materially ahead of market expectations" after a sharp boost in sales during the first three months of 2010.

"The housing market in East London has shown positive signs of recovery, with regeneration surrounding the build up to the 2012 Olympics continuing to stimulate demand," said Andrew Wiseman, chief executive.


About £1.7bn has been set aside in the Olympic budget for investment in renewal, with Telford benefiting from the boost to infrastructure and stature that the project has brought.

In the year to March 31, the company got 389 completions, compared to 350 in the previous financial year, according to its trading statement.

A total of 70 pre-sales were made on developments with overseas investors, a reflection of the improved market in East London.

Skipping Worlds won't keep LeBron, Bosh out of Olympics

INDIANAPOLIS — Skipping the World Basketball Championship this summer won’t necessarily keep LeBron James and others off the 2012 U.S. Olympic team after all.

Speaking to Sun Media after the 2010 hall of fame class was announced Monday, USA Basketball head honcho Jerry Colangelo clarified statements he made earlier this week that raised the ire of James.

“We appreciate the fact they’re willing to give their time. We have to be flexible,” Colangelo said. “Some players may have to miss for whatever the reason may be — contracts, injuries, family issues...free agency this year is big.”

Previously, Colangelo had said he would not provide “free passes” in terms of playing in London in 2012 for players who skipped the worlds without a valid excuse.

That had sparked an angry response from James, the likely NBA MVP.

“There’s a lot that goes on with being a professional athlete other than just basketball,” James told reporters. “I’m not trying to bash Jerry or anything like that because he’s a good guy and I respect him. I don’t respect (his statement) because of the commitment we’ve all given to the U.S.A.”

Colangelo said he realizes James, Dwyane Wade and the Raptors’ Chris Bosh will have a lot on their mind this summer — like who to accept millions of dollars from — and he wasn’t speaking particularly about them.

“The point I made regarding London is, we will give credit for all the equity people have put into it," he said. "Bosh has equity, so does Wade, so does LeBron. Things happen. We just have to be flexible."

The trio has been involved with USA Basketball since 2003.

London 2012 Olympics: Locog opens ticket registration website

Locog, the London 2012 organising committee, this morning launched for UK and EU residents interested in buying tickets for the Games, which go on sale next year.

Reigning Olympic women's 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu was among those due to be present at Trafalgar Square for a media event to mark the launch and the first day of London becoming the next Olympic and Paralympic host city, following the closing ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Paralympic Games last night.

The ticket registration site tells its users that "they will be among the first to hear about ticketing news and other exciting events and offers" although signing up does not give users any head start in the application process.

Locog will be hoping that the launch helps begin to appease the London Assmebly, which last week issued a list of 18 hard-hitting questions amid demands for transparency and affordability in the ticketing strategy.

While London bidders promised a range of tickets at less than £30, there have been recent indications from Locog that that price barrier is too low to meet a £441 million ticketing revenue target.

The Assembly submission called for specific details about price, the availability of tickets, whether there will be any priority access and the purchasing arrangements.

Women's boxing at the London 2012 Olympics: raging belle

On a chilly winter morning, just before dawn, a young woman dressed in a black tracksuit runs hard along the seafront of her home town. She shadowboxes as she runs – seven miles around the picturesque coastal town of Bray in Co Wicklow. Over the past six years this morning workout has been a daily ritual for Katie Taylor, the two-time and current amateur lightweight world boxing champion. It is part of a gruelling regime that she hopes will help her achieve her ultimate goal: to become the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal at boxing.
The London Games in 2012 will be the first time women have been allowed to compete in this most visceral of sports at Olympic level. Last August the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decreed that 36 places would be available in London to the world’s elite female fighters, who would compete across three weight classes: flyweight (48-51kg), lightweight (56-60kg) and middleweight (69-75kg).

Taylor knows that women’s boxing is a mystery to the majority of sports fans, but is certain that is about to change. 'People will be shocked by the standard of the sport at London 2012,’ she tells me after her run. 'We’ve been invisible up until now. I think if I had achieved what I’ve achieved and I was a man, I’d have got much more recognition. Hopefully, more recognition will come with the Olympics.’

She certainly has recognition within her own sport – other female boxers talk about Katie Taylor with awe. She is supremely skilful and has lightning reflexes. 'I like to sit in the pocket [boxing speak for fighting at close range], to fight on the inside,’ she says. 'I do like a bit of a war.’ Her hero is Sugar Ray Leonard, the flamboyant American champion of the 1980s.

Eloquent and attractive, Taylor, 23, is a promoter’s dream, tipped to be one of the stars of the 2012 Games, and the athlete who can lead women’s boxing into the mainstream. Like many of her fellow fighters, she is an all-round sports enthusiast, and has also represented Ireland at football. She started boxing at the age of 10 – one day, when it was raining too heavily to play football, her father took her to the local boxing gym instead; she was a natural. Thirteen years later, she wants to repay her father, Peter, a former amateur light-heavyweight champion of Ireland and now her trainer. 'He’s sacrificed so much to work with me full-time,’ she says. 'I wouldn’t be where I am now without him.’