London 2012 Olympics: three days to go - live blog
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Live coverage as government calls up 1,200 more troops Olympic torch takes the tube 60,000 watch ceremony rehearsal and 'save the surprise' Nick Clegg to open athletes' village
The government has called up the extra 1,200 troops it put on standby last week. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, said the numbers of security guards to be provided by beleaguered security firm G4S "continue to rise significantly" but that ministers wanted to "leave nothing to chance". He said the additional deployment was not because of any deterioration in the performance of G4S. Paul Deighton, the chief executive of London organising committee Locog, said just under 6,000 G4S staff had been deployed so far and they were expecting that to rise to 7,000. He said no further troops would now be deployed.
Deighton also said that "on the job" training for x-ray operators had been introduced at the request of the army. The Guardian reported last night that the credibility of the Olympic security operation being run by G4S had been called into further question by claims that scores of trainees were being allowed to "cheat" their way through tests for the x-ray machines that detect homemade bombs and other weapons.
Tweeters at the Olympic opening ceremony rehearsal yesterday said it was “epic”, “a treat”, “out of this world”, “breathtaking”, “spectacular, clever, charming, moving and awe-inspiring” – but almost to a person have heeded director Danny Boyle’s request to “#savethesurprise”.
The British Olympic Association has written to triple jumper Phillips Idowu asking for details about the injury which has cast doubt on his chances for the Games. Idowu, 33, failed to travel to a warm weather training camp in Portugal yesterday prompting the BOA to seek clarification about his hip injury. Idowu was incredibly disappointed and surprised at such a public request, his agent said, and was more than happy to send the BOA the medical records. A fully fit Idowu would be one of the top medal hopes among British track and field athletes.
French time trial champion Sylvain Chavanel will reportedly be fit for the Olympics despite pulling out of the Tour de France during the 15th stage. The 33-year-old cyclist was forced to quit because of a chest infection. Chavanel is quoted in today’s L'Equipe saying he will race in London but was "very scared for two or three days after I quit the Tour”.
Team GB will be officially welcomed into the London 2012 Olympic Village this evening, at a ceremony involving dancers, poets, rapping and Queen songs. The welcome shows, curated by the National Youth Theatre, have been under way for a week for visiting nations, with the hosts due to be formally inducted into the village at 6pm. With Bradley Wiggins's Tour de France victory still fresh in the mind and a glut of British medals expected at the velodrome, athletes are fittingly brought in to a classical performance of Queen's Bicycle Race and are treated to a medley of performances from the NYT before the playing of the Olympic anthem and the raising of the team's national flag. Performances of We Are the Champions and Don't Stop Me Now continue the Queen theme.
That's it for today. Join me tomorrow for the first sporting event of the Olympics as Great Britain's women's football team play New Zealand at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Thanks for all your comments.
The possibility of an injunction to block the industrial action by the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) follows a letter to the union by the home secretary, Theresa May, describing the planned walkout as "opportunist and wholly unjustified".
PCS officials are due to hold talks with senior Home Office management later today.
There is much newspaperly excitement as details of the young royals' Olympic schedules are released, offering a timely reminder to the populace that merit and hard work are lovely as far as they go, but a prince clapping at a horse is an achievement to trounce all plebeian athletic endeavour, writes Marina Hyde. Indeed, the headline news seems to be that Prince Harry will be attending the beach volleyball, where real ladies famously wear real bikinis.
Harpers Wine & Spirit Trades Review reports on an Oddbins promotion based around the rivals to the main Olympic sponsors:
Anyone who comes into an Oddbins branch wearing Nike trainers and has in their pocket a set of Vauxhall car keys, an RBS MasterCard, an iPhone, a bill from British Gas and a receipt for a Pepsi bought at KFC will receive 30% off their purchase.
Ayo Akintola of the off licence chain is quoted as saying:
Thanks to Locog, any business without the tens of millions of pounds required to join the cabal of multinational brand partners for the Games is reduced to the status of beggars on the gilded streets of the Olympic movement.
We have taken steps to ensure our planned window displays do not flout any of these asinine rules, but we are doing this primarily to highlight the absurdity of the fact that the British people - who are paying for these Games - are at the same time being subject to ridiculous rules. Even though our window designs will be within the rules, we would not be surprised if Locog goes loco.
Just in case we hadn't got the message while sitting (and getting a bit hot and bored) for about an hour for the show to start, Danny [Boyle] himself appeared and spoke unto us in his matey, charismatic Lancashire brogue. He said we could film, tweet, text and post if we wanted to, and he couldn't stop us, but he asked that we didn't because it would spoil it for everyone else. It was both an incredibly naive request and a deeply moving one. He said we were, in effect, part of the show. He recruited us into his big secret, his gang and I swear everyone in there was thrilled to be asked. I for one will do what he wants because I like him, he directs brilliant films and theatre, he's cool. I want to be in Danny's gang. And I suspect many others will too.
But perhaps I'd be less loyal if the show itself hadn't been so spellbinding. I can't tell you why, of course, but we were all transfixed by the various comings and goings and music and lights. It's an epic production of which Cecil B deMille would have been proud, with an appeal to all ages ...
So in this era of leaks, and institutions you can't trust it's incredibly heartening that a crowd of people came together to witness a special event and have shown they can be trusted to keep a secret. Well I hope they can because, as a Twitter wit posted earlier, spoilers are just for boy-racer cars.
Mash-up artists Cassetteboy have created this Olympic welcome to London from Boris Johnson.
"Imagine the colossal expense of constructing the kind of endless higgledy-piggledy encampment full of prostitutes and pedlars and what have you, in honour of one of the biggest thugs and creeps in world history, " says the chopped-up mayor.
BBC News has just reported that Phillips Idowu’s agent has responded to the British Olympic Association’s written and public request for the triple jumper to give it details about the hip injury that has cast doubt on his chances for the Games.
Idowu was incredibly disappointed and surprised at such a public request, his agent said. He could not understand what benefit that would be to the athlete. Idowu, the agent said, was one of those athletes who, if he got to the start line, could win a medal.
He was more than happy to send the BOA the medical records, the agent added.
Phillips Idowu. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images
"This will be the moment, and this will be the year, when I set myself apart from other athletes in the world," Usain Bolt tells Donald McRae as he prepares to face Yohan Blake, his friend and compatriot who has become a serious rival. “No man has ever successfully defended his 100m Olympic and 200m titles on the track,” writes McRae. “If Bolt replicates his feats from the Beijing Olympics, where he won three gold medals with blistering speed and irresistible panache, his name will echo alongside near mythic sporting figures like Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, Pele and Michael Phelps.”
McRae recalls that amazing 100m run that won Bolt gold in 2008, breaking the world record in the process by crossing the finish line at 9.69 seconds:
Running faster than any man had ever run before, Bolt was so far ahead of his straining rivals he made it appear as if he had slowed to a saunter as he spread his arms wide in a "look-at-me" gesture and crossed the winning line. He wore the expression of a man who had conquered the world.
The government has called up the extra 1,200 troops it put on standby last week. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, said the numbers of security guards to be provided by beleaguered security firm G4S "continue to rise significantly" but that ministers wanted to "leave nothing to chance". He said the additional deployment was not because of any deterioration in the performance of G4S. Paul Deighton, the chief executive of London organising committee Locog, said just under 6,000 G4S staff had been deployed so far and they were expecting that to rise to 7,000. He said no further troops would now be deployed.
Deighton also said that "on the job" training for x-ray operators had been introduced at the request of the army. The Guardian reported last night that the credibility of the Olympic security operation being run by G4S had been called into further question by claims that scores of trainees were being allowed to "cheat" their way through tests for the x-ray machines that detect homemade bombs and other weapons.
Tweeters at the Olympic opening ceremony rehearsal yesterday said it was “epic”, “a treat”, “out of this world”, “breathtaking”, “spectacular, clever, charming, moving and awe-inspiring” – but almost to a person have heeded director Danny Boyle’s request to “#savethesurprise”. Steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal has attempted to quash speculation that the Olympic flame will be lit in the ArcelorMittal Orbit, the red sculpture largely paid for by Mittal towering over the Olympic Park, saying he had floated the idea, but too late for consideration.
The British Olympic Association has written to triple jumper Phillips Idowu asking for details about the injury which has cast doubt on his chances for the Games. Idowu, 33, failed to travel to a warm weather training camp in Portugal yesterday prompting the BOA to seek clarification about his hip injury. BOA spokesman Darryl Seibel said: "Our chief medical officer Dr Ian McCurdie wrote to Phillips and his agent yesterday asking that he provide to Dr McCurdie the relevant medical records relating to his injury and the treatment he is currently receiving. Those should be provided to our chief medical officer on a confidential basis. The basis for doing this is a clause in our team members' agreement that says athletes are required to provide details of any injury or illness that may impact on their performance during the Games." A fully-fit Idowu would be one of the top medal hopes among British track and field athletes.
French time trial champion Sylvain Chavanel will reportedly be fit for the Olympics despite pulling out of the Tour de France during the 15th stage. The 33-year-old cyclist was forced to quit because of a chest infection. Chavanel is quoted in today’s L'Equipe saying he will race in London but was "very scared for two or three days after I quit the Tour”.
Team GB will be officially welcomed into the London 2012 Olympic Village this evening, at a ceremony involving dancers, poets, rapping and Queen songs. The welcome shows, curated by the National Youth Theatre, have been under way for a week for visiting nations, with the hosts due to be formally inducted into the village at 6pm. With Bradley Wiggins's Tour de France victory still fresh in the mind and a glut of British medals expected at the velodrome, athletes are fittingly brought in to a classical performance of Queen's Bicycle Race and are treated to a medley of performances from the NYT before the playing of the Olympic anthem and the raising of the team's national flag. Performances of We Are the Champions and Don't Stop Me Now continue the Queen theme.
The Olympic torch got on a special tube train in Wimbledon.
The Olympic torch travels on the tube today. Photograph: Ho/EPA Photograph: Ho/EPA
The Olympic torch inside a special tube train today. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/Locog/PA
Photograph: Gareth Fuller/Locog/PA
Yesterday, Jacques Rogge of the International Olympic Committee described himself and his fellow members of the IOC as "working-class people". Today Mark Adams, the committee's director of communications, explained:
His English is good, but he did not mean working-class as in hammer and sickle. He just meant he works very hard.
Paul Deighton of London organising committee Locog has said he is "very confident in the training that's been put together both for the G4S guards and for the military ... What we're particularly doing to try and reinforce performance on the ground is we'll have a series of roving teams go around and train people on the job to make sure they're up to scratch and performing. So it's not a question of just training them and sending them out there."
Asked if this was a new development, he said: "It is. We always had a general plan that we'd need to do this, but the specifics we've put together with the military, who had some very good ideas about how that might work."
Deighton said that when G4S chief executive Nick Buckles referred to the situation as a shambles, he was referring "to his own company's performance". He said:
It was a big disappointment. We signed a contract with the biggest security company in the world, whose biggest customer is the UK government. They continually assured us that they had both the capability to deliver, which they clearly do, and obviously the incentive, given their relationship with the government and the exposure you get when you're protecting an Olympic Games. So it was obviously a huge disappointment and a lack of performance to deliver.
He added: "But the plan is absolutely 100% in place - we simply have soldiers doing work which otherwise would have been done by private security guards. Net outcome - we're actually in a better position."
The wool is in fact the finishing tape from the famous marathon of the 1908 London Olympics, when Italian Dorando Pietri finished first – and was then disqualified – in the most dramatic of circumstances. Hugely tired and dehydrated, Dorando collapsed four times in the Olympic stadium, helped to his feet each time by officials. It is a poignant exhibit with a terrific story to tell. Other items in the show include stamps and postcards as well as a woman competitor's swimming costume from the 1908 games. The show is being put on by the library and the International Olympic Committee and is known as the Olympex - an Olympic collecting show that has accompanied each Games since 1988. By all accounts the Beijing Olympex was deathly dull, just lots and lots of stamps. With the British Library show you get actual stories. Not for everyone but I thought it was terrific. It's free and runs from 25 July to 9 September.
A few commenters who were at the opening ceremony rehearsal have shared their thoughts. R2020 wrote:
Was there at the rehearsal yesterday and the queues at water fountains and bars/food stalls were ridiculous!
Having been to music festivals and other sporting events I am totally surprised at the poor organisation behind the bar, we know that Britain can do better!
On a more ironic note at the bar I was queueing at the Visa machine was not working and the most Coca-Cola products had run out! Good marketing campaign if you ask me.
Transport worked really well last night, despite the central line being down. Was on a tube out of stratford station within 30 mins of leaving my seat in the stadium.
Totally agree about the drinking fountains - not enough but it didn't mar a brilliant evening. I felt quite privileged to be there and can't wait for it to happen for real on Friday.
Also, the friendliness of all Olympic workers and volunteers must be noted. If they keep that up for the next month, then they will do themselves proud. There's an incredible feeling of togetherness about to take place. The fact that it's happening on our doorstep just makes it feel more real.
I walked past this huge red London bus with arms yesterday in the centre of Islington, north London. It’s an artwork by David Cerny made to mark the Olympics, and it does push-ups, as you can see in this video. "There is one common exercise for every sportsman in the world, and that is push-ups," explained Cerny, who is Czech. "It is training for sport activities but at the same time it is also punishment in armies and prisons. So the push-ups are a very universal physical activity ... It is in a way very ironic."
The bus is called the London Booster and it has been installed outside the Czech Olympic base.
London booster, a London bus that does press-ups designed by Czech artist David Cerny to mark the Olympics. Photograph: Reuters Photograph: /REUTERS
Paul Deighton of London organising committee Locog has said that the series of roving teams to "train people on the job" on how to operate the security measures, including x-ray machines, and "make sure they're up to scratch" did represent a change of plans, partly as a result of talks with the military, but he insisted that similar plans had always been in mind.
It looks like Vladimir Putin will be attending the Olympics after all, reports Miriam Elder from Moscow.
The Russian president had earlier said he was sending his prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, to head the country's official delegation and attend the opening ceremony this week. But Putin, an avid fan of all things sport, can't stay away from the games. His office refused to confirm or deny that Putin would indeed head to London - and then added that journalists should send in requests to accompany him and that a final decision would be made by Monday. The judo black belt has made little secret of which competitions he would like to attend. "I will probably also visit the Olympic Games," Putin said during the G20 summit in Mexico last month. "I want to see the judo competition." He also said that "maybe" he would see David Cameron there. "At any rate it will be a private trip."
Vladimir Putin takes part in a judo training session in December 2010. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Photograph: /AFP/Getty Images
Here is an Olympic weather forecast. The Met Office says tomorrow it will be sunny in London, with a high of 30. Thursday will be sunny with a high of 29. Friday will start off cooler, around 21C, with thunderstorms forecast for the early evening, although they may just have finished before the Olympic opening ceremony starts. Saturday is slightly cloudy with a high of 20. Here’s a full national report from my colleague Martin Wainwright.
Asked if even more troops could be called up in future for the Games, Paul Deighton of London organising committee Locog, said: "We now have the full military deployment to deliver these Games in just about any scenario, so I'm confident about that."
Deighton also said that "on the job" training for x-ray operators had been introduced at the request of the army. The Guardian reported last night that the credibility of the Olympic security operation being run by G4S had been called into further question by claims that scores of trainees were being allowed to "cheat" their way through tests for the x-ray machines that detect homemade bombs and other weapons.
Deighton said: "The principal entrance has been managed by the military and has been since the beginning," and that soldiers last night processed 400 people per hour.
Nick Hopkins, the Guardian's defence and security correspondent, writes that the military had been expecting today's mobilisation, which will involve 400 personnel being provided from each service.
They had been put on standby last week because of the ongoing difficulties at G4S, and commanders had wanted the 1,200 the extra staff brought into the fold immediately, rather than delaying the move until just three days before the opening ceremony.
Last week, ministers said this new tranche would only be deployed if they were required. Though Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, said today G4S numbers were continuing to "rise significantly", the MoD and other officials across Whitehall appear to have lost confidence that the company will be able to fulfil its commitments in the time left.
The 1,200 new troops will be based at Tobacco Dock in east London, and at some of the other venues being used for the armed forces around the capital. The military will not need to create another base to house them, officials said.
The MoD still has another 1,000 troops in reserve - its "Military Contingency Force". They will only be deployed in emergency situations.
The extra troops come on top of the additional 3,500 drafted in a fortnight ago as the recruitment gap by G4S emerged, making a total of 4,700 extra.
Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, said that, with three days to go until the opening ceremony, London 2012 was "very much on track". "Opening ceremony rehearsals have started and over 4,000 athletes have arrived in London and their response to the village and the venues has been hugely positive," he said.
Hunt said the additional deployment was not because of any deterioration in the performance of G4S, which had delivered 1,100 more guards yesterday.
But with three days left to the opening ceremony and an incredibly busy weekend we didn't want to leave anything to chance, and we just decided this was the right measure to take, because for the public the most important thing is a safe and secure Games. It's better to have those troops on the ground so that were they to be needed they can swing into action immediately.
Paul Deighton, the chief executive of London organising committee, Locog, went on: "You can't be absolutely certain of anything with a temporary workforce. Therefore we want to substitute a temporary workforce with a permanent, reliable workforce that we get with the military."
He added: "The reason that we've chosen to deploy the extra 1,200 is, sure, the plan is to go from 6,000 [G4S staff] to 7,000, but we can't be absolutely certain about anything with a temporary workforce."
The military were said to have been keen for the government to make its mind up earlier and call up the troops last week if they were going to be needed.
A soldier has his photograph taken in front of the Olympic stadium in London on 19 July. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images
Ministers took the decision to deploy the additional 1,200 troops this morning at a cabinet committee on the Olympics chaired by David Cameron, amid continued concern about security staffing.
Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, said the numbers of security guards to be provided by beleaguered security firm G4S "continue to rise significantly" but that ministers wanted to "leave nothing to chance".
The 1,200 troops to be called up were placed on standby last week.
Hunt said:
Security staffing levels at venues have been kept under constant review. G4S numbers continue to rise significantly and we have every expectation that will continue to be the case. However, ministers decided that we should deploy the additional 1,200 troops that were put on standby last week. On the eve of the largest peacetime event ever staged in this country, ministers are clear that we should leave nothing to chance. The government continues to have every confidence that we will deliver a safe and secure Games.
Locog's chief executive, Paul Deighton, said: "The reason that this decision has been taken is just to absolutely de-risk any aspect of the operation. With three days to go, we just want to make sure this works without any worries at all."
But he added that it was not a sign of private firm G4S having any further problems supplying staff. He said that just under 6,000 G4S staff had been deployed so far and they were expecting that to rise to 7,000.
Paul Deighton, the London organising committee Locog's chief executive, says the additional 1,200 troops are to "de-risk everything" and calling them up doesn't reflect on G4S numbers.
Transport for London’s Peter Hendy has said he is expecting an extra one million people to use public transport – an additional 3m journeys. He says 1,300 vehicles an hour will use the busiest section of the Olympic route network, trying to dispel the image of BMWs whizzing by.
Chris Allison of the Metropolitan police says all security plans have been made as if the terrorist threat is at “severe”, although it is actually one notch down at “substantial”.
Last night, 60,000 people were invited to view a rehearsal for Friday’s opening ceremony at the Olympic stadium. Director Danny Boyle reportedly addressed the audience to ask them to “save the surprise” by not posting any images on social networks; the hashtag #savethesurprise was emblazoned on giant screens. A number of Guardian correspondents were at the rehearsal, but the paper is not going to give away the details.
Tweeters last night called the rehearsal – which we know starts with a mock-up of the British countryside, including real-life farm animals, cricket players and people dressed in Victorian clothes – “epic”, “a treat”, “out of this world”, “breathtaking”, “spectacular, clever, charming, moving and awe-inspiring”.
Labour’s David Miliband, who was there, tweeted:
Miliband’s wife, Louise Shackleton, plays the violin in the London Symphony Orchestra. There was controversy last month when the LSO was told it would have to mime its part of the ceremony because the stadium’s shape and the uncertainties of the weather made a live performance to risky.
The Guardian’s Dave Hill and Peter Walker were also at last night’s rehearsal. Hill said he would #savethesurprise, but added: “I think most people will enjoy Boyle's resourceful and imaginative approach to what was always going to be a tricky task.” He warned that there was an enormous queue for the water fountains and it took him a long time to travel the short distance home.
Walker told me:
Everyone around me seemed hugely impressed. Some bits, for me, worked notably better than others but overall it manages to somehow be spectacular and epic but always human in focus, and at times very moving in a way I still can't fully explain. It also manages to be hugely choreographed and fairly anarchic at the same time. Very different from Beijing - or any other such ceremony.
He added that there were “massive, static throngs” between the Olympic Park and the tube on the way out. “The way everyone funnels out through the Westfield shopping centre seems to create some awful bottlenecks. I'd predict this could happen again.” And he said people were waiting well over half an hour in “huge queues” for food. “The staff seemed pretty inexperienced and hapless. There were lots of jokes in my queue about getting the military in here as well.”
Here's the Press Association's full story on the British Olympic Association writing to triple jumper Phillips Idowu asking for details about the injury which has cast doubt on his chances for the Games.
The strict marketing rules governing the London Games have been blamed for a lack of visible Olympics fever in shop windows across the land - non-Olympic sponsors are not allowed to use the words Games, Two Thousand and Twelve, 2012 or Twenty-Twelve in association with the words London, medals, sponsors, summer, gold, silver or bronze. But one shop at least seems to have outwitted the killjoys. Suit hire shop Focus Formal Wear in Surbiton, south-west London (slightly laddish slogan: “Got the GIRL * Got the Date * Get the Suit”) have decorated their front window with five interlocking coloured squares and the legend: “Lodnon 2102 Oimplycs.” Sadly, I fear the London organising committee will only see this as a challenge.
Owen Gibson attended last night's opening ceremony for the International Olympic Committee's "session" - the formal proceedings at which business is discussed prior to the Games - at the Royal Opera House.
They always follow a set formula - speeches followed by a series of performances designed to showcase the culture of the host nation. Locog cheif Lord Coe underlined the warm welcome that awaited - "London is like a permanent Olympic village, a place where families from every corner of the globe have settled" - and claimed London had transformed the Games from a sporting event to one that could drive social change. Former Olympian Princess Anne, the BOA president, pointed out Britain was just one of five nations to compete in every Games since 1896 and delivered a message from the Queen, with whom IOC members had spent the afternoon.
Perhaps the audience was biased, but there seemed general agreement that the "cultural bit" was a cut above the usual politically correct fare on such occasions. Boris Johnson stole the show with a hammed up poem in Ancient Greek in the style of Pindar, complete with actions. The stuffed shirts of the IOC hollered their appreciation, where a polite ripple is usually the order of the day.
Other highlights included a storming dance routine set to imagery of the 1908 and 1948 Games, a performance by Placido Domingo, the Royal Ballet, an arrangement of Nick Cave's haunting Into My Arms sung by Paloma Faith and Duncan Rock and a massed chorus of singers and dancers performing an Ode to Joy finale. As these things go, it was pretty impressive and - crucially - didn't go on too long.
Boris Johnson during opening ceremony of the 124th IOC session at the Royal Opera House in London last night. Photograph: Andrew Gombert/EPA Photograph: Andrew Gombert/EPA
The OIympic torch is travelling through south and west London from Kingston to Ealing, and is due to ride on the London underground at some point. The first torchbearer of the day was Olympic gold-medal-winning rower James Cracknell, with musicians Katie B and Mark Ronson later on. Send your pictures to paul.owen@guardian.co.uk or tweet me @paultowen.
There will be a welcoming ceremony in the international zone of the athletes’ village tonight. The village will be opened by Nick Clegg today. The deputy prime minister will also meet Team GB (presumably not all of them).
At 1.30pm Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, James Brokenshire, the security minister, Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison of the Metropolitan police and Peter Hendy of Transport for London will be giving a briefing on Olympic security.
Today’s Olympics news so far:
Spectators who attended a sneak preview of the Olympic opening ceremony were urged not to spoil the surprise for the rest of the world by keeping details of the eagerly anticipated curtain raiser under wraps. Games organisers last night asked thousands of people who were invited to a technical dress rehearsal of the £27m spectacular to try and refrain from circulating any revealing pictures or videos taken inside the Olympic Stadium. More on this shortly.
Motorists faced long queues this morning on routes where pre-Olympics modifications have been made to road layouts. There were delays of up to an hour on the A13 between the Canning Town flyover and the A1261 East India Dock link tunnel junction in east London. There were also jams on the A12 southbound in Leyton, east London, while there were 45-minute hold-ups on the A40 Western Avenue in west London. The delays were less severe at these spots than they had been yesterday, suggesting that drivers were heeding the warnings by Transport for London to avoid driving in London in the runup to, and during, the Games.
London Underground employees are to stage a work-to-rule from Friday in an Olympics-related dispute. The RMT union, which represents thousands of tube staff, said it was in dispute over implementing an Olympics pay deal, as well as the use of casual workers. The union also announced a strike by cleaners on the underground and Docklands Light Railway from Friday morning until Sunday, the first weekend of the Games. LU said the action would have no impact on services. RMT members at South West trains are also going to work to rule from Friday throughout the Games, while RMT Boris bike workers will strike for 48 hours from Friday morning and back office Transport for London staff will strike from 24 hours on Friday. Border staff are due to strike on Thursday.
The British Olympic Association has asked triple jumper Phillips Idowu to produce medical records relating to his hip injury after he said he would not join the Team GB training camp in Portugal, according to the Daily Mail.
The “secret security guard” – due to join G4S's security team for the Olympics – reveals in a Guardian column fears that training for the job is far from sufficient.
Britain is fairly equally split into gold, silver and bronze levels of excitement about the Olympics, but those with no interest at all are in a small minority – according to a Guardian/ICM poll.
David Cameron is convening a total of 17 summits in London over the next month, as the government seeks to exploit the presence of scores of heads of government and state for the Olympics to raise at least £1bn of inward investment.
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