Camping at the London 2012 Olympic Games

Campsites near London 2012 Olympics

When? 27/07/12 until 12/08/12

Where? Olympic Stadium, London, Greater London, E15 1PE

OK, so this one needs no introduction! For 30 glorious days, the whole of London will be in party mode as the city hosts 17,000 members of the international sporting elite for the 2012 Olympics.

With 26 Olympic sports and 19 Paralympic sports being played across 31 different venues, not least the brand spanking new 500-acre Olympic Park, there’s something to tickle everyone’s sporting taste buds (beach volleyball on Horse Guards Parade, anyone? Wonder if the guards will be able to stay po-faced for that one!).

Some random facts about the Games:

• 11,500 shuttlecocks will be used
• The athletes will scoff over 350 tons of vegetables.
• The mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville, have their own Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.
• A massive new sculpture (22 metres taller than the Statue of Liberty) is being erected in the Olympic Park.
• The organisers are expecting around 500,000 spectators a day, so you’d better pick your spot early!

Campsites near Equestrian

When? 28/07/12 until 09/08/12. 

• Equestrian is the only Olympic sport in which men and women compete against each other on equal terms.
• It had the Games’s oldest medallist at Beijing in 2008, 61 year old Canadian Ian Millar who won silver in the team jumping.
• There’s a minimum age for the horses involved – eight years old for dressage and eventing, and nine years old for jumping.

Current champs: Germany, who took home three gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games. 

Campsites near Paralympics Road Cycling

When? From 05/09/12 until 08/09/12. 

Where? Brands Hatch, Fawkham, Longfield, West Hythe,Kent, DA3 8NG

Road cycling was introduced as a Paralympic sport at the Stoke Mandeville/New York Games in 1984, originally on tandem bikes as a sport for blind athletes. Tech advancements on bikes have opened road cycling up to a wider range of athletes and it’s now the third biggest Paralympic sport. There’ll be 225 athletes taking part in 14 road and track medal events in Kent, using four types of bike – hand, tandem, tricycle and modified bike.

Sporty fact:

• Hand cycling for athletes with lower limb disabilities  was introduced at the at Athens 2004.

Current champs: Team GB cleaned up in 2008, with 20 medals including 16 gold. Runners up were the USA, with 13 medals including five gold. 

Campsites near Canoe

When? From 29/07/12 until 11/08/12. 

Current champs: Slovakia, who won three gold medals in Beijing in 2008.

Campsites near Road Cycling

When? From 28/07/12 until 01/08/12. 

Campsites near Mountain Biking 

When? From 11/08/12 until 12/08/12. 

Campsites near Archery

When? From 27/07/12 until 03/08/12. 

Where? Lord's Cricket Ground, St John's Wood, London, Greater London, NW8 8QN

Quivers at Lord’s? The 2012 Archery events take place at Lord’s Cricket Ground for a week from 27 July, with 128 athletes vying for four gold medals in men and women’s individual and men and women’s team events. It’s been a regular Olympics event since 1972, with intermittent appearances in 1900, 1904, 1098 and 1920.

Sporty facts:

• The first known archery competition was organised in Finsbury in 1583 and had 3000 participants.
• Archery was considered so essential to the nation in the 14^th century that it was compulsory for every male aged between seven and 60.

Current champs: South Korea were well ahead of the game in 2008, with two golds, two silvers and a bronze medal. Runners up were China, with one medal in each category.

Campsites near Rhythmic Gymnastics

When? From 09/08/12 until 12/08/12. 

Bendy people aplenty at Wembley Arena for four days in August, in one of the Games’s two women-only events (synchronised swimming is the other). Rhythmic gymnastics is a mixture of gymnastics and dance and is at the Olympics for the eighth time. There’ll be 96 athletes competing for medals in the individual and group events, performing routines to music using a hoop, a ball, clubs or a ribbon. Scores are awarded in three categories – difficulty, artistry and execution.

Sporty facts:

• Rhythmic gymnastics first developed in the 19th century, with the first experimental competitions staged in the 1930s.
• The sport has evolved to include elements from classical ballet, German muscle-building techniques and Swedish exercise systems.

Current champs: Russia took the lead in Beijing 2008, with a gold medal in both categories.

Campsites near Badminton

When? From 28/07/12 until 05/08/12. 

Remember we said there’ll be 11,500 shuttlecocks used at London 2012? No prizes for guessing where. The badminton events are on over a week at Wembley Arena and will have 172 athletes competing in five medal events – men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles. Apparently shuttlecocks can reach a speed of around 400 kph when hurtled properly over the net, which was obviously what our PE teachers were thinking of when they were yelling at us all those years ago.

Sporty facts:

• A public art display featuring the world’s largest shuttlecocks (18 feet tall) is at the Kansas City Museum, USA.
• Badminton was invented by British military officers in India in the 19^th century.
• The best shuttlecocks are said to be made from the feathers of the left wing of a goose.

Current champs: Host country China won the majority of medals in 2008, taking three gold, two silver and three bronze. Runners up Indonesia and South Korea won a gold, silver and bronze each.

Campsites near Paralympics Sailing

When? From 01/09/12 until 06/09/12. 

Sporty fact:

• Sailing was introduced to the Paralympic Games as a demonstration event at Atlanta 1996, becoming a full medal sport at Sydney 2000.

Current champs: Canada and the USA tied for first place at the 2008 Summer Paralympics, each winning one gold medal and one bronze. 

Campsites near Sailing

When? From 29/07/12 until 11/08/12. 

Sporty facts:

• The most successful Olympic sailor ever is Denmark’s Paul Elvstrom, who won his first gold medal (of four) in 1948, and who was still competing in 1988 at the age of 60.
• Crown Prince Olav of Norway won gold in the six-metre Sailing class at the Amsterdam 1928 Games.

Current champs: Britain took the lead in Beijing 2008, with four gold medals, a silver and a bronze. 

Campsites near Rowing

When? From 28/07/12 until 04/08/12. 

Row, row, row your boat, gently down…Dorney Lake? The rowing events f0r 2012 are at the Eton Dorney Rowing Centre near Windsor, set in 450 acres of Berkshire parkland. Rowing is the only Olympic sport where competitors pass the finish line backwards, something we would nevertheless like to see in some of the other events (mountain biking?). Like the sailing events, rowing is one of the big ones, with 550 athletes competing in 14 men’s and women’s events.

Sporty facts:

• Famous child development expert Dr Spock won Olympic gold in the men’s eight at the Paris 1924 Games.
• An Aussie rower at the Amsterdam 1928 Games stopped halfway through his quarter-final race to let a family of ducks pass in front of his boat (aw). He was overtaken by a French competitor, but managed to get back in front and win the gold. We think this is our Favourite Olympic Tale Ever.

Current champs: Team GB are like ducks to water, taking two gold medals, two silver and two bronze in Beijing 2008.

Campsites near Tennis

When? From 28/07/12 until 05/08/12. 

Three weeks after Wimbledon finishes comes the Olympic tennis events at, er, Wimbledon, where we assume the grass will have grown back and all the strawberry stems picked up. Britain will be hoping for some sort of Wimbledon win this time round, and there are five events to try their luck at – men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles and mixed doubles.

Sporty facts:

• In 1896, John Boland went to Athens to visit a friend, who entered him in the Olympics singles competition. He won it and then went on to win the doubles title as well.
• The first tennis balls were made of wool or hair, wrapped up in leather.

Current champs: Russia just took the lead in Beijing 2008, with a gold, silver and bronze medal and slightly ahead of Spain with a gold and a silver.

Campsites near Football

When? From 25/07/12 until 11/08/12

Where? There are six event venues for 2012 – at Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Wembley and Coventry.

It’s football, it includes Old Trafford, Wembley and St James’s Park, and it’ll keep us going over the summer between Euro 2012 and the start of the new season. These are all good things. Football first started as a medal sport at the Paris Games in 1900, with the women’s game introduced in Atlanta in 1996, and there’s a men and women’s competition in 2012 with 504 footballers in total.

Sporty facts:

• The tournament has been decided by a replay just once, in Amsterdam 1928 when Uruguay beat Argentina 2-1 after the first match ended 1-1. A penalty shootout has also been used just once, when Cameroon beat Spain in a shootout at Sydney 2000.
• Hungary has won more football gold medals (three) than any other country.
• Around 2400 footballs will be used during London 2012.

Current champs: The USA won the women’s competition at Beijing in 2008, beating Brazil 1-0 in the final. Argentina won the men’s competition against Nigeria, also 1-0.