London 2012: Olympic medals

Thickness: 7mm Diameter : 85mm Weight: 400gQuantity: --

Designer : David Watkins

The biggest Summer Olympics medals to date. Artist David Watkins says the key symbols on front and back juxtapose the goddess Nike, for the spirit and tradition of the Games, and the River Thames, for the city of London. On the back of the medals is the 2012 branding, representing the modern city as a jewel-like, geological growth. The logo is shown against a 'pick-up-sticks' grid which radiates the energy of athletes and a sense of pulling together. The River Thames runs through the middle as a celebratory ribbon. The bowl-like background recalls ancient amphitheatres, with a square balancing the circle to give a sense of place. The sport and discipline is engraved on the rim of each medal, all of which will be produced by the Royal Mint at Llantrisant, South Wales.

3 former Olympians from region have big ambitions again

To East St. Louisan Dawn Harper, a gold medal in the 100-meter hurdles at the Beijing Olympics meant a hometown street renamed in her honor, a relatively cavernous two-bedroom apartment compared to the one she and her husband had been scrunched into in Los Angeles, and a simple sense of "look what I can do."

For Mizzou's Christian Cantwell, a silver in the shot put in Beijing represented a seismic psychological breakthrough. Shrugging off the weight of fouling on five of six throws in failing to make the 2004 Athens Olympics despite a world No. 1 ranking, Cantwell rallied from fifth to second on his final throw in Beijing.

Vianney High's Scott Touzinsky says the gold medal he earned as part of a men's volleyball team contending with the stabbing murder in China of his coach's father-in-law "still hasn't sunk in."

While he believes it helped more than double his salary on the professional circuits, Touzinsky, 29, added Thursday, "Half the time I forget I'm an Olympic gold medalist, to tell you the truth."

While Nerinx Hall's Lori Chalupny, who won a gold medal with the women's soccer team in 2008, is not expected to return to the national team because of recurring concussions, the three others with local ties have ambitions of competing in the London Olympics - which begin a year from this Wednesday. Then again ...

"You can only go downhill after your first one," joked Touzinsky, who served in spot duty in Beijing and says he is competing with four others for a place on the national team as it approaches various Olympic qualifiers. "Hopefully, you get that call in the end."

If not, he said, he can live with it. Part of Touzinzky's perspective stems from an outlook that tells him volleyball has been plenty good to him, allowing him to travel all over the world: In the last few years, he has lived in Slovenia, Turkey and Germany and will play this season in Dubai at a salary "in the hundreds" of thousands to go with a fully furnished apartment and car provided by the team. Part of his perspective also comes from having a 10-month old son, Logan, who along with his wife, Angelique, will spend the nine-month season with him abroad.

Cantwell's world view also has evolved with fatherhood.

"My son, Jackson, changed my life 10 times more than winning the silver," Cantwell said a year after Beijing. "I am pretty much the same guy I was before I (won)."

Just the same, Beijing was the beginning of scaling new heights for Cantwell, who was unable to be reached last week as he traveled to Europe for a meet.

Soon after, he won his second world indoor title. A year later, the native of Eldon, Mo., won his first outdoor world championship. In 2010, he claimed his third world indoor gold and entered 2011 ranked No. 1 in the world.

Cantwell, 30, had surgery on his left, non-throwing shoulder in January and hasn't been as dominant this year, but he finished second in the U.S. championships last month and continues to prepare for the world championships next month in South Korea as part of his quest to turn that Beijing silver into London gold. He's competing in Monaco this week.

While Cantwell's success in Beijing was seen as promise at last fulfilled, Harper's gold was a sheer stunner. Injuries had kept her off the radar after her UCLA career, and she only made the Olympic team by 0.007 of a second after lunging across the finish line at trials.

But she kept advancing in China. Her blinders steered her to gold when favorite Lolo Jones smacked a hurdle down the stretch in the final.

Like Cantwell, Harper, 27, largely has prospered since Beijing. She won a national title and world silver in 2009, finished third at the U.S. championships last month and has qualified for South Korea. She, too is running in Monaco this week. As for London, it's probably her last chance for Olympic glory, as it figures to be for Cantwell and Touzinsky.

Make it or not, earn medals there or not, each has an Olympic legacy already.

"Heck, it's all gravy from here on out," Touzinsky said.

Phelps set for seven events at worlds

Michael Phelps is anguished no more. After a frustrating year marked by losses, lack of motivation and fitness, and indecision about his future in the pool, the 14-time Olympic champion is happy to be working hard again.

Fueled by time standards known only to him and coach Bob Bowman, Phelps is at the world championships, an eight-day meet that will serve as the next-to-last chapter in his storied career.

The ending will be written at next year's London Olympics.

“I kind of feel like my own self,” he said Saturday at a jammed news conference held the day before swimming begins at the Oriental Sports Center's indoor pool. “I've been excited and happy to be around the pool.”

Phelps plans to swim the 200 freestyle, 100 and 200 butterflys and the 200 individual medley.

He still owns the world records in both fly events. Trainer Bob Bowman confirmed that Phelps will swim all three relays, too.

He opens the championships in China today as part of the U.S. 400-meter free relay, the most anticipated event on the opening day of swimming.

Phelps will renew more rivalries in the 200 free final on Tuesday. Awaiting him are teammate Ryan Lochte and Paul Biedermann of Germany, who trounced Phelps with a world-record time in a stunning upset in Rome. Of course, that was before FINA banned the high-tech suits that led to 43 records at those worlds.

Lochte and Phelps will duel in the 200 IM, where Lochte is the defending world champion whose results last year made him the top American swimmer.

“What Michael did in 2008 is definitely going to go down in history, but that was three years ago,” Lochte said. “Anything can happen. I know I'm definitely a better swimmer than in '08. We're going to put on a show.”

Phelps' seven-event program in Shanghai is one less than he swam at the Beijing Olympics, where he burnished his legend as the greatest swimmer in history by winning eight gold medals.

Synchronized: Russia completed a gold-medal sweep of all seven events at the synchronized swimming world championships, winning the final event — the team free — to give Natalia Ishchenko her sixth gold.

Russia's eight-woman team including Ishchenko scored 98.620 points.

China was second with 96.580 and Spain took the bronze.

The 25-year-old Ishchenko has 16 world championship gold medals and a team gold with Russia at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Olympics 2012: Cultural events mark countdown in Wales

Wales' countdown to the Olympics is starting with events marking a year-long run-up to the London Games.

A cultural Olympiad by heritage body Cadw hosts projects across north Wales, including a celebration of medieval sports at Conwy Castle.

Big screens in Cardiff and Swansea are showing Olympic and Paralympic films, footage and interactive games.

Wednesday marks a year to the Games, and Welsh ministers hope the events will "inspire and engage" young people.

Across the UK, towns, cities and heritage sites are marking the "One Year to Go" countdown to the Olympic and Paralympic Games with the London 2012 Open Weekend.

In Wales, the weekend includes two 16-hour days of screenings on big screens at The Hayes in Cardiff and Castle Square in Swansea.

The films and footage, similar to those being shown being at Trafalgar Square in London, include live information, video, and news about the Olympics.

Flashmob

It also includes the chance for audiences to take part in the interactive game Swim Wenlock Swim, with motion sensor cameras comparing the results between cities taking part.

Meanwhile, Cadw's own Power of the Flame Cultural Olympiad initiative, Cauldrons and Furnaces, is formally launched at Ucheldre Centre in Holyhead at 14:30 BST.

The programme, in partnership with the Arts Council of Wales, includes a variety of events including storytelling, community art workshops, dance, music and creative craft activities.

Three north Wales castles - Flint, Harlech and Caernarfon - are staging events on Saturday.

At 15:00, Flint hosts a work by young dancers from the county. Harlech has a flashmob staged by 20 local primary and secondary school pupils.

Caernarfon has a kaleidoscope art exhibition, from 11:00 to 15:00, created by pupils at six local schools.

A flashmob is also being held in Flint High Street, at noon and 13:00.

'Inspire and engage'

Cadw's cauldrons and furnaces theme is picked up on Sunday at St David's Bishop's Palace, Pembrokeshire.

A tour between 11:00 and 14:00 tells visitors about the secrets of the building and of saints.

Heritage Minister Huw Lewis said: "As the excitement around next year's Olympic Games continues to build, we are delighted to welcome back the Open Weekend Cauldrons and Furnaces programme as part of Wales' cultural contribution to the Olympiad celebrations.

"The series of events and activities aim to inspire and engage with the children and young people of Wales, not only demonstrating what can be achieved creatively, but also deliver a lasting legacy of inspirational work of the people of Wales beyond the Olympics

London 2012 Olympics

The last time the Olympics came to London, in 1948, Britain was building a welfare state. Sixty-three years later they are knocking it down. In this brazenly market-driven and self‑preserving phase of our history it could be that a vast national experience might revive the communal spirit that shaped society in the post-war years. For 17 days, at least.

Where do the British go now to feel a shared collective glow: Glastonbury? Or the TV screen to unite around a talent contest or The Apprentice? The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic hosts no longer coalesce around politics or religion but in pursuit of mass entertainment, which the Games have always claimed to be. The self‑declared "Greatest Show on Earth" offers an engulfing wave of pleasure and distraction as well as the perfect personal showcasing opportunity for David Beckham.

With the Olympic family now seeming as wholesome as The Waltons, compared to Fifa, London 2012 has been served a chance to strive for something higher than geopolitical ambition of the sort we endured in Beijing three years ago. A tall order, you may think, in a land where civil war erupts over the formation of a GB football team, but on all known precedent the British are exceptionally good at throwing themselves into international carnivals staged on these shores.

London is staging next year's Games by accident. The shock bidding race victory over Paris landed politicians and organisers with the formidable task of inflating a toytown budget to a more honest level and actually piecing together an infrastructure capable of accommodating 26 sports across 34 venues, 10,500 athletes and double that number of accredited media. If we all paired off, each runner, swimmer and wrestler could have two personal journalists to record every grunt and grimace.

When Paris acquired the lemon‑sucking countenance of the beaten red-hot favourite, supporters of London's bid formed two camps. One saw the Olympics as an opportunity to drive through the regeneration of London's East End and the Lower Lea Valley while reviving sport in state schools. The other, more hedonistic group, thought watching beach volleyball in Horse Guards Parade would be a giggle and confer on Britain some vague international glamour, yeah.

In the event the country finds itself constructing a sporting Disneyland at the time of draconian cuts to public spending. Many of us would rather have the Games of 1948 again with people cutting up old bed-sheets to make running shorts if it meant improvements to the NHS, schools and public services, but the universe we now inhabit is one of sob-inducingly high ticket prices and £400,000 Olympic logo design costs.

These will be my fifth Games as a reporter. A uniting theme is that Messianic pre-event sermons seldom result in long-term improvements for the population or their environment. Atlanta, in 1996, was the Games of corporate shock and awe, with Coca‑Cola the exclusive drink at all venues and bus drivers from Philadelphia who had never been to Georgia. But this was also the circus where Michael Johnson's 200 metres world record rampage of 19.32sec achieved the kind of instant televisual intensity that has become the emblem of modern sport.

Individual brilliance and drug busts: these are the two constants of Olympic competition. Atlanta was the Games where Ireland's Michelle Smith won three golds in the pool before being caught two years later trying to tamper with a urine sample to head off disgrace. Sydney 2000, where the fly-blown outback dunny was a theme of the opening ceremony, was the fortnight of Steve Redgrave's fifth rowing gold, Cathy Freeman's breakthrough for Aboriginal Australians and the cheating heart of Marion Jones, who was fuelled by tetrahydrogestrinone.

Athens 2004 sent the media army scurrying after Konstantinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou, who cited a motorcycle accident nobody saw for their failure to attend a dope test. Then came Kelly Holmes's victories in the 800m and 1500m and Paula Radcliffe's operatic collapse in the women's marathon. Four years later it was reported that 21 of the 22 facilities built for the Games were abandoned or derelict: a "legacy" the creaking Greek economy is in no position to correct.

Beijing 2008 felt like an endless memo to the rest of the world, and America especially. This would be the Chinese century. The Games unfolded in secure compounds of spectacular architecture, high fences and choreographed gratification. Here we observed market capitalism coexist with authoritarian one-party rule and Michael Phelps weigh himself down with eight swimming golds while Usain Bolt extended the boundaries of human capabilities with his 100m-200m double.

So when the rhetoric is hacked away the abiding memories are of transcendent achievement, by Johnson, Redgrave, Phelps or Bolt. With its cult of "togetherness", the Olympics conceal their strongly individualistic origins. The happy-family spirit is a modern addition – and it works, often, by jerking the western mind out of its narrow obsession with fame and power. Away from our own funded culture, athletes are overcoming immense economic and cultural obstacles simply to be able to say they competed at the Games.

The Olympics' biggest single asset is that they are a convention of the whole sporting world, unlike the World Cup, where only the 32 best countries assemble. You never see hundreds of footballers flooding the host city once the tournament is over to rejoice and engage with the locals. Below the top tier of stardom, London will be another epic compendium of stories, of modest but earnestly pursued hopes.

For the grotesque cost to be in any way justified, London will have to be a much better city when it ends on 12 August for those who live and work there, and opportunities in sport will need to be more widely spread, beyond privilege and money. A government that emotes about the obesity-busting potential of next year's fiesta tried to withdraw £162m funding for the popular schools sport partnership until an outcry forced a backtrack. In 1948 they would have been the enemies of progress and fairness.

London 2012 shops

You can buy London 2012 merchandise from our official London 2012 online shop.

London 2012 shops are also located in:

Terminal 5 (airside)

Heathrow Airport

Tel: 020 8283 7727

Opening hours: Mon-Sun, 5.30am-10pm.

St Pancras International

Address: Unit 2A, St Pancras International, Pancras Road, London NW1 2QP.

Tel: 020 7837 8558

Opening hours: Mon-Sat, 8am-9pm; Sun, 11am-7pm.

Paddington Station

Address: Unit 29, The Lawn, Paddington Station, London W2 1HA

Tel: 020 7402 5616

Opening hours Mon-Fri, 7.30am-7.30pm; Sat, 9am-6pm; Sun, 11am-6pm.

John Lewis Oxford Street (fifth floor)

Address: John Lewis, fifth floor, 300 Oxford Street, London W1A 1EX.

Tel: 020 7629 7711

Opening hours: Mon-Sat, 9.30am-8pm, with the exception of Thurs, 9.30am-9pm; Sun, 12-6pm.

Official London 2012 product ranges have also been developed by adidas (Official Sportswear Partner) and Next (Official Clothing and Homeware Supplier).

In addition to the shops listed above, the adidas range may be purchased from its flagship store on Oxford Street (415-419 Oxford Street, London W1C 2PG. Tel: 020 7493 1886).

The London 2012 range of Next merchandise may be purchased from selected Next stores (please call your local store for more information).

Open Weekend begins and Test Events continue

Olympic gold medallist Jonathan Edwards (centre left) stands next to Olympic mascot Wenlock and Pineapple Dance Studios founder Debbie Moore OBE (centre right) during a class at the Pineapple Dance Studios in London. The class was held ahead of Open Weekend, celebrating one year to go to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Jonathan Edwards and Wenlock have certainly been busy, here they are admiring the artwork produced by local teenagers in art workshops at the National Portrait Gallery as part of Open Weekend 2011.

The London 2012 Beach Volleyball venue received a special delivery this week as the first trucks of sand were delivered to Horse Guards Parade in St James's Park. They arrived ahead of the London Prepares Series test event, the Visa FIVB Beach Volleyball International. The first lorry of sand, which is high quality Redhill 28 sand, was delivered today from a quarry in Godstone, Surrey. Following the event, which takes place on 9-14 August, the sand will be reused by Volleyball England, the national governing body, at their training venues around the UK.

London 2012 film sets new Guinness World Record

The Tate Movie Project’s 'The Itch of the Golden Nit' has entered the record books ahead of being screened across the UK to celebrate Open Weekend 2011

A part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the film project has achieved a Guinness World Record for the most individual contributions to an animated film, with a total of 1,897 people selected for involvement in the process.

The film, which premiered in Leicester Square in June, was made entirely by and for children. Thousands of drawings, sound effects and story ideas by young people from across the UK make up the innovative half-hour animation, with ideas generated in workshops and submitted to an online film studio. In total, more than 34,000 children submitted ideas to the project.

Cultural Olympiad Director Ruth Mackenzie said: 'The success of The Tate Movie Project is phenomenal; thousands of young people across the UK have been developing skills through animation workshops and digitally through the website. The announcement today of this wonderful cast and story is thrilling – congratulations to everyone.'

'The Itch of the Golden Nit' will be shown in Trafalgar Square and at Live Sites across the UK on Saturday 23 July 2011 as part of Open Weekend, while an exhibition about the project is running at Tate Modern until the end of August.

The film was funded by Legacy Trust UK and BP, with additional support and resources from the BBC, and brought together by Tate and Aardman Animations.