Head of the River Race 2012
Forget the London Olympic Games 2012’s rowing event, as London’s Head of the River Race is the largest continuous rowing event in the world. Taking place on March 17, 2012, this highly prestigious event will see 420 “eights”, that’s boats with eight rowers for the rowing-terminology uninformed, flock to the River Thames to participate in this extremely competitive event.
The Head of the River Race 2012 begins at Mortlake and takes rowers down the Thames for 6800 metres, that’s 4 and quarter miles, to Putney, where the race finishes – a challenge which makes the 2000 metre Olympic regatta look like child’s play in comparison!
This truly engaging race takes approximately two hours to finish and if weather conditions are a little on the harsh side, which they often can be in mid-March in the UK, it only adds to the exhilaration and dynamics of the event!
Being such an exciting sporting fixture, the River Thames banks are literally brimming with spectators on the day of the Head of the River Race, all eager to catch a glimpse of the rowers as the glide past.
With the best view of the race being at the northern part of Hammersmith Bridge, the crowds are particularly heavy here, which, of course, only adds to the atmosphere and excitement of this formidable annual sporting event.
McQ takes London alongside Stella McCartney ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games
The Alexander McQueen fashion house was founded by the late luxury fashion designer Alexander McQueen. The brand quickly became notorious for its controversial style, including the famous “bumster” hipsters, trousers so low that they left little to the imagination.
In July 2006, the company launched its McQ line, a more realistically priced diffusion of the Alexander McQueen fashion house, bringing the style, daringness and notoriety of the McQueen brand to the masses.
For the first time since the McQ line was launched, the brand will be presented at the London Fashion Week in February, exhibiting its autumn/winter 2012/2014 collection to the highly anticipated London Fashion Week catwalk.
The catwalk show will preview a snippet of what will be on sale in the first McQ store which will be opening in London sometime in the spring. The, some may argue, too long in coming store is going to be located in an impressive Georgian townhouse at 14 Dover Street in west London. The four-storey store will consist of 273 square meters of retailing heaven and will be the McQ’s first flagship store, offering both menswear, ladieswear and accessories.
Another famous name to be presented in the February London Fashion Week 2012 is Stella McCartney, who will be hosting a special fashion presentation on the evening of February 18, 2012.
London’s Olympic Park Garden
London’s Olympic Park Garden – Living proof of a truly green Olympics.
After two years of design, preparation and construction, the London Olympic Park garden is finally finished. The 2.5 kilometre site located in Stratford, east London, consists of many lush meadows and fields, containing more than 4,000 new trees.
The former brownfield industrial site is nectar-rich with 300,000 wetland plants, 4,000 semi-mature trees and a multitude of flowers designed to blossom whilst the 2012 Olympics are taking place. Blue Peter gardener, Chris Collins, put the final touches to the UK’s largest urban park by planting an English oak sapling, a poignant symbol of Englishness located within a truly international event.
The quarter of an acre riverside Olympic Park garden overlooks the Olympic Stadium, which has the capacity to hold 80000 people during the Games.
The amazing transformation of a barren, disused industrial estate into a vast urban park of meadows and fields brimming with natural life, is a pleasant feature of the London Olympic 2012’s commitment to be the greenest Olympic and Paralympic games to date. Talking about how the now completed urban Olympic park garden is going to help ensure London achieves its goal as being the greenest Olympics in history, Chris Collins said:
“What has been achieved on the site in turning it from brown to green is remarkable. Spectators will find it hard not to be blown away next summer as the effort put into creating a diverse and colourful park has already paid off.”
Earlier this year, London 2012 Olympic organisers published a statement that they were “on track to deliver the world’s first “truly sustainable” Olympic Games.”
The Olympic Village – a “great deal for London”
Boris Johnson hails Olympic Village residential neighbourhood as a “great deal for London”.
It has been announced that London’s Olympic Village is to become a new residential neighbourhood after the 2012 Games that will house approximately 5,000 people.
Together with the Housing Association group, Triathlon Homes, which has already agreed to pay £270 million for almost 1,500 houses on the site, in a joint deal, the investment fund Qatari Diar and developers Delancey, are to pay £830 million for a large slice of the east London site.
Talking about the new announcement, the London Mayor said:
“It is another big step towards securing a fantastic future for new neighbourhoods and communities we have always said would be created as a major legacy for the capital after the 2012 Games.”
The new Olympic Village neighbourhood is due to open in 2013 and, as well as comprising of 2,800 new homes – 1,000 of which are to be three and four bedroom family houses - will also include a school, health centre, restaurants and shops, making it a truly self-contained community.
London 2012 Olympics preparations in the ‘killing zone’
Sebastian Coe, Olympic legend and chairman of the London Olympics 2012 organisers, has announced that London 2012 has entered the ‘Killing Zone’, a crucial time in the Game’s development that will determine it will meet the Olympic gold standard or fall back amongst the ‘also-rans’.
“In terms of an 800 (metre race)…I think this is between 500 and 600 metres, the second lap and in 8—metre running that’s known as the ‘Killing Zone,” the Olympic gold medallist explained, before adding, “And it’s how you come out of that 100 metres that often determines the order that you finish in.”
The London 2012 Olympics preparations has recently reached its “one year to go” mark and its chairman is confident that London will rise to the challenge and has only the best people organising the biggest event the English capital will have ever put on.
Talking about the progress of the Game’s organisation at a Reuters “Newsmaker” event, Sir Cole said:
“I guess what I would say at this moment is that what we have within our control is under control. But I am not that cavalier that I don’t recognise that there are things that will come to us in the last year that you don’t always foresee.”
For the London 2012 Olympic preparations, a series of ‘London Prepares’ test events will be taking place across the capital in the forthcoming months in an attempt to ‘iron out’ any potential problems, particularly associated with security and transport, the two areas that have been under particular scrutiny.
