LONDON OLYMPIC 2012 BENEFITS TO BRITAIN

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The Mayor of London believes the Olympic 2012 Games and Paralympics Games will have far-reaching benefits for London and Londoners, as well as the rest of the UK, creating jobs, attracting visitors and providing inspiration.

Lord Coe said "It's just the most fantastic opportunity to do everything we always dreamed of in British sport. We can change the face of sport in the next seven years and beyond.

British interest in sport is being ignited by the forth-coming Olympics and will lead to enormous numbers of young people honing in on sporting activities.

For cities, the London Olympics 2012 games represent an unprecedented opportunity to reinvent themselves in buildings, events and social innovations.

The London Olympics in 2012 also represent a huge opportunity to showcase Britain to the world and to boost the country's tourism industry before, during and after the games.

VisitBritain predicts that 50-70% of the net economic benefit of the London Olympics will come through hospitality and tourism over 7-10 years.

Estimates seem to show that £2b could be generated and that almost two-thirds of this growth will happen in the four years after the games.

Many of the new purpose built Olympic facilities will be reused. This will be part of the regeneration of Stratford and Lower Lea Valley in east London. After the games, the Olympic Village, where athletes and officials will stay during the London 2012 Olympics, will be converted into homes. It is the aim to make many of these homes available for key workers such as teachers and nurses.

Together with the new homes in the Olympic Village, there will be further housing built on the Olympic Park site after the Games, creating a total of over 9,000 new homes.

A legacy of the London 2012 Olympics will be that after the games, the Olympic Park will be transformed into the largest urban park created in Europe for more than 150 years .

Riverside housing, shops, restaurants and cafes will provide new amenities for the local community.

LONDON OLYMPIC 2012 INTERESTING STATISTICS

The following statistics are approximations:

• Number of sports - 26
• Number of Athletes - 17,000
• Number of journalists to cover the event - 20,000
• Number of countries represented - 200
• Number of people involved in staging the games - 63,000
• Number of spectators - 500,000
• Number of tickets expected to be sold - 9 million