Nigeria: 2012 London Olympics - The Country Will Win Medals - NOC - AllAfrica.com
The National Olympic Committee (NOC) has promised Nigerians medals at the London Olympics.
The NOC President, Engineer Sani Ndanusa made the promise while speaking at the celebration of the arrival of the London 2012 Olympic Torch.
In an event which took place at the Abuja National Stadium Velodrome, Nigeria joined other participating countries to celebrate the arrival of the Torch in the United Kingdom.
Engr Ndanusa pointed out that "we have a team that can deliver and we are going to deliver." While refusing to state how many medals target the NOC was aiming at, Ndanusa maintained that "Nigeria is going to compete rather than participate."
He said the NOC was confident of achieving results as the country's athletes have been training with the best facilities all over the world.
Engr Ndanusa said Nigeria was glad to celebrate the arrival of the Olympic Torch with the United Kingdom.
'Peace', the word
Speaking at the occasion, the Deputy British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Giles Lever says 'Peace' was the key word in the celebration.
"The Olympic Torch has a long symbolic and very important history representing Peace among all the countries in the world that is represented in the olympic games."
He noted that it represents "power to overcome divisions in different communities, different countries, different religions and to bond all of them together in celebration of a honest completion."
He promised that the Olympic games was going to be a "fantastic" one, which will help show the great sides of Great Britain in Sports, Culture, innovations as well as in Science and Technology.
Mr. Lever said the British Government over the years, have been involve in projects in Nigeria that will help imbibe the spirit of Peace and togetherness among Nigerian youths.
About the Torch
The Torch is a symbol of peace and an embodiment of the Olympic Truce, which promotes the ideals of peace and conflict resolution and the premise that individuals, not countries, compete against each other in sports, in peaceful competition without the burden of politics, religion or racism.
The NOC presented the replica of the Olympic Torch to the British High Commission. Nigeria's first appearance at the Olympics was in 1952 at the Helsinki Games.
At the moment, preparations are in top gear for the country's athletes to fly the national flag at the 2012 Summer Games.
London 2012: Pictures of the start of the Olympic Torch relay - london24.com
Torchbearer Ben Ainslie holds the Olympic Torch and waves to the crowd before he begins the first leg between Land's End and Sennon.
Sarah Shaffi, Olympics editor (news)
Saturday, May 19, 2012
11:50 AM
The Olympic Flame will travel 136 miles today, on the first leg of a 70-day tour of Britain.
The Olympic Torch relay started shortly after 7am this morning, when the Flame arrived at Land’s End from RNAS Culdrose in a Search and Rescue helicopter sporting a specially painted gold blade.
Lieutenant Commander Richard Full, a member of the Royal Navy Search and Rescue Squad, walked the Flame from the helicopter to the Land’s End signpost.
Three-times Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie was the first torchbearer, and he passed the Flame to Anastassia Swallow from St Ives. In total there are 139 torchbearers on the first day of the relay.
In addition to being carried, the Flame will also be taken in a Rainforest Balloon at the Eden Project.
Today the Flame will be carried through communities including Penzance, Helston, Falmouth, Truro, Newquay and Bodmin, ahead of arriving in Plymouth at 8.52pm.
When it gets to Plymouth Hoe the Flame will be used to light a cauldron to mark the culmination of the day’s festivities.
Seb Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), said: “The start of the Olympic Torch relay is the beginning of an exciting summer of sport across the UK.
“A huge thank you to all those who have been involved in the planning process who have helped the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay come to life. Everyone has played their part in giving thousands of inspirational people and hundreds of communities their moment to shine.”
Torchbearers during the day include Connor Mcarthur, 13, from Plymouth, who helps the families of service children through Her Majesty’s Schools (HMS) Heroes; George Phillips, 87, from Penzance, who also carried the Flame in the 1948 Torch relay; and Samantha Woon, 21, from Cornwall,who has used her difficulties with her own sight to fundraise for the blind.
Jeremy Hunt, secretary of state for culture, Olympics, media and sport, said: “It’s incredibly exciting that the Olympic Flame’s arrived and is now starting its momentous journey right around the country. I hope as many people as possible get out to see it and cheer on their local torchbearers.”
The Olympic Flame will travel around 8,000 miles over 70 days before arriving in the Olympic Stadium on July 27 for the opening ceremony of the Games.
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London 2012: Plane which will carry Olympic Flame to Britain unveiled
The plane which will carry the Olympic Flame from Greece to Britain has been unveiled.
London 2012: Jason Smyth just outside Olympic standard - BBC News
Paralympic star Jason Smyth just missed out on achieving the 100m Olympic standard as he clocked a time of 10.24 seconds in Florida on Saturday.
The Northern Irishman's time was 0.06 seconds outside the Olympic A standard in the meeting at the National Training Centre in Clermont.
Smyth will chase the London standard again at meetings in the US over the next three weeks.
The 24-year-old trains alongside Tyson Gay at the Clermont venue.
The Derryman set his personal best of 10.22 at the same track a year ago and Saturday's run is his second fastest ever 100m.
Earlier, Smyth had clocked a wind-assisted 10.23 in the heats in Saturday's meeting.
"I'm delighted with that. It's a fantastic season opener for him," said Smyth's coach Stephen Maguire.
"He made a few mistakes in both races so there's more to come."
Smyth later said on Twitter:"Good day at the track. My quickest ever opener 10.24. Good things ahead."
The Londonderry man has been training alongside top athletes such as American star Gay at his regular Florida base since November.
Like South African star Oscar Pistorius, Smyth's main career ambition is to compete at both this year's Olympic and Paralympic Games in London.
He competes in Orlando next week before racing again at the Clermont venue on 2 June.
The 24-year-old has also received an invitation to the Diamond League meeting in New York on 9 June.
Meanwhile, Ciara Mageean clocked 4:14 for the 1500m as she finished third at Saturday's British Milers Club meeting in Manchester behind British youngsters Laura Weightman and Jessica Judd.
London Olympics 2012 torch relay starts in Britain - Raw Story
Yachtsman Ben Ainslie was the first torchbearer as the Olympic flame began its 70-day journey around Britain and Ireland on Saturday ahead of the 2012 London Games.
With the Atlantic Ocean behind him at Land’s End, England’s most southwesterly point, the triple Olympic gold medallist waited while the flame was flown in by a Royal Navy search and rescue helicopter.
Lieutenant Commander Richard Full carried the flame off the helicopter in a golden lantern, posed briefly for photographers, and took it a short distance to light the torch that Ainslie was holding in the bright morning sunshine.
Ainslie then set off, barely breaking into a jog as he let some of the 3,500 spectators lining the route touch the golden torch whose design has led it to be nicknamed the “cheese grater”.
After travelling barely 300 metres (yards), he passed on the torch to 18-year-old Anastassia Swallow, a surfer who is hoping that her sport will one day become an Olympic discipline.
Over the next 10 weeks, the torch will travel 8,000 miles (12,875 kilometres) around England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and will also visit the Republic of Ireland.
Some 8,000 people — one for every mile of the route — will take part in the torch relay as it heads for the Olympic Stadium in east London for the opening ceremony on July 27.
Ainslie, who just a day earlier won a sixth world title in the Finn class as he steps up his efforts to win a fourth Olympic gold, said it had been a special moment for him to start the relay in his home county of Cornwall.
“I’m really very proud for the whole nation,” said Britain’s greatest Olympic yachtsman, who wore the number 001 on his white London 2012 top.
“It was pretty emotional, so much effort has gone into getting the Olympics in London and it means so much to everyone involved.”
On its first leg, the torch was to be carried through Cornwall to the city of Plymouth.
On its 70-day odyssey, it will travel through 1,019 cities, towns and villages and visit landmarks such as Stonehenge.
From June 3-7, it will go to Northern Ireland and then the Republic of Ireland — the only country outside the United Kingdom on the route.
No overseas legs of the relay have been planned this year after those before the 2008 Beijing Games were hit by protests against China.
The flame was lit in Ancient Olympia in Greece on May 10 and was handed over to the British delegation in Athens in a rain-sodden ceremony on Thursday.
It was flown to Britain on board a British Airways plane renamed The Firefly for the occasion, accompanied by football star David Beckham and Princess Anne, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II.
Beckham had the honour of lighting the first torch at the Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall on Friday.
In contrast to the shoestring operation when Britain last hosted the Olympics in 1948, just three years after World War II ended, this year’s relay is a big-budget affair, with parties and public events at each of its stops.
The oldest runner will be a 100-year-old woman, while Olympians past and present and soldiers injured in Afghanistan will also take part.
But the London 2012 organisers wanted the bulk of people taking part in the relay to be unsung heroes who have helped their community, individuals involved in sport and younger people.
Swallow, the teenager who had taken over the torch from Ainslie, said it was a memorable day but admitted she got “a bit excited and a little crazy and ran too fast”.
“I was really surprised by the atmosphere here today. Everyone was cheering and calling my name. It is something I will never forget.”
Joggers to make deliveries during London Olympics - NBC Sports
LONDON (AP) -An international delivery service is turning to a team of runners to beat the London Olympics crush.
With close to 5 million visitors expected for the July 27 to Aug. 12 games - along with stringent security measures and special Olympic lanes reserved for athletes and employees - getting around is expected to be a challenge. So German express delivery service DHL is enlisting London-based JogPost's team of foot couriers to help make sure packages get to their recipients on time.
JogPost co-founder JJ Harding described his 400-odd roster of largely part-time runners as "congestion-busters."
"During Olympic chaos and gridlock, we'll still be able to get crucial documents to business," he said.
The capital's transport infrastructure has been identified as one of the biggest risks to the games' smooth running. DHL said in a statement announcing the deal Saturday that traffic was expected to increase along London's core routes by 30 percent.
Harding said that his uniformed runners, whose speed varies between 3 and 8 miles an hour, would have an edge over London's ubiquitous bicycle couriers.
"We're able to do long-distance delivery much faster with public transport. Bikes can't go on trains," he said. Some routes, like London's Rotherhithe tunnel, are inaccessible to cyclists.
Harding described his joggers as mainly contract workers - anything from students to semi-professional soccer players - and suggested that they would leave feats of endurance to the Olympians.
"They generally run somewhere between five or six miles a day," he said of his crew. "Obviously we don't want them running half marathons every day."
North West 200: Farquhar claims supertwins victory - MCN
Ryan Farquhar claimed an historic victory in the first ever North West 200 Supertwins race this evening (Thursday).
Ireland’s top road racer led the four-lap race from start-to-finish in the Vauxhall-backed race to cross the line 2.94s ahead of former GP rider Jeremy McWilliams with Michael Rutter third – all three riders on Farquhar built Kawasakis.
Farquhar has been instrumental in the development of the Supertwins class in Ireland and it’s his hard work that has also seen the TT adopt a Twins race on the mountain course this year for the first time.
He said: “This is unreal. I always knew the potential of these bikes and to come here and have the likes of Jeremy, Michael and Jamie (Hamilton) riding for me was a lot of pressure but also an honour.”
It was McWilliams’ North West 200 debut and he said: “This is a dream come true for me and a dream come true for Ryan. I never thought I’d be able to run this close to the front. I’ve really enjoyed it and I’ll be back if Ryan invites me to ride his bike again.”
The NW200 race stated on a wet track but it was drying throughout the four laps. Farquhar and McWilliams were on wets but Rutter opted for dry tyres and rode a masterful race in treacherous early going to overcome James Hillier (Pr1mo Bournemouth Kawasaki) and Adrian Archibald (McKinstry Kawasaki).
Rutter’s last lap established a new lap record for the class. Farquhar’s fourth entry, Jamie Hamilton – another NW200 rookie - finished sixth.
MCN’s Adam Child survived a scary moment in wet qualifying when he hit a kerb to finish 24th in his Supertwins debut, riding his Ken Urwin Motorcycles Kawasaki. He ran a stock engine for the NW200, saving his tuned ER6 motor for next week’s TT debut.
London 2012 torch relay starts in Britain - Assam Tribune
LANDS END (UK), May 19 (AFP): Sailor Ben Ainslie was the first torchbearer as the Olympic flame began its 70-day journey around Britain and Ireland today ahead of the 2012 London Games.
The flame arrived in Britain from Greece yesterday and was flown to Lands End, the southwesterly tip of England, today by a Royal Navy helicopter before it was used to light the torch for the start of the 8,000 mile (12,875-kilometre) relay.
Ainslie, who has won gold medals in sailing at the last three Olympics, then walked just 300 metres, allowing some of the 3,500 spectators lining the route in the morning sunshine to touch the gold-coloured torch.
The yachtsman, wearing the number 001 on his T-shirt as the first torchbearer, then passed on the torch to 18-year-old Anastassia Swallow, a surfer who is hoping that her sport will one day become an Olympic discipline.
Ainslie, who on Friday won a sixth world title in the Finn class as he prepares for an attempt to win a fourth Olympic gold, said it had been a special moment for him to start the relay in his home county of Cornwall.
It was pretty emotional, so much effort has gone into getting the Olympics in London and it means so much to everyone involved, he said.
On its first day, the torch will be carried through Cornwall to the city of Plymouth.
Over the next 10 weeks, 8,000 people will carry the torch as it makes its way around the United Kingdom and heads for the Olympic Stadium in east London for the opening ceremony on July 27.
It will travel through 1,019 cities, towns and villages and visit landmarks such as Stonehenge.
From June 3-7, it will go to Northern Ireland and then the Republic of Ireland the only country outside the United Kingdom on the torch route.
No overseas legs of the relay have been planned this year after those before the 2008 Beijing Games was hit by protests against China.
The flame was lit in Ancient Olympia in Greece on May 10 and was handed over to the British delegation in Athens in a rain-blighted ceremony on Thursday.
It was flown to Britain encased in a special lantern on board a British Airways plane renamed The Firefly for the occasion, accompanied by football star David Beckham and Princess Anne, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II.
Beckham had the honour of lighting the first torch at the Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall on Friday.
In contrast to the shoestring operation when Britain last hosted the Olympics in 1948, this years relay is a big-budget affair, with parties and public events at each of its stops.
Police in new appeal over fatal crash - This is Southampton
Police in new appeal over fatal crash
1:58pm Saturday 19th May 2012 in News
POLICE are continuing to appeal for witnesses to a fatal head-on crash in Romsey in which a woman from the town died.
A silver Vauxhall Combo was travelling towards Romsey town centre on the A3090 bypass when it was in collision with a white Volvo tipper lorry.
A 57-year-old woman, who was travelling in the back of the Vauxhall, sustained fatal injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Vauxhall driver, a 67-year-old man, was taken to Southampton General Hospital with minor injuries and discharged the same night.
The driver of the lorry, a 38-year-old man from Portsmouth was uninjured.
The road was closed for nearly four hours for an investigation..
Witnesses to the collision, on Thursday around 2.20pm, or anyone who saw either vehicle just prior to the crash, are asked to contact Sergeant Andy Lynch of the Road Death Investigation Team at Eastleigh on 101, quoting operation Elmshurst.
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