Queen's Diamond Jubilee: half a million Britons to join celebrations in London - Daily Telegraph
Hundreds of thousands more will visit the capital from overseas – Heathrow alone is expecting to handle 780,000 overseas travellers between today and next Tuesday.
The west London airport is laying out red carpets in its arrivals halls and handing out Union flags to passengers.
Eurostar has also reported a 30 per cent rise in bookings over the weekend, with up to 30,000 passengers a day travelling between Britain and the Continent.
Not all Britons will be staying in the country to celebrate the Jubilee, however. Around two million are expected to head abroad during the coming days, with 115,000 due to fly from Heathrow on Friday. The most popular destinations for departing travellers are Dubai, Amsterdam, Chicago, New York and Dublin, according to the Association of British Travel Agents.
Meanwhile, Transport for London has warned motorists to avoid central London throughout the weekend, while a number of bus routes will be diverted due to road closures.
"Central London will be very busy throughout the weekend and everyone intending to be in central London should use public transport, plan their journeys ahead and check before they travel,” said London's Transport Commissioner Peter Hendy. "Road closures and bus diversions will mean that some people have to travel in different ways - particularly on the Sunday. Due to a number of road and bridge closures, motorists are advised particularly to avoid central London for all but essential journeys on that day.”
The London Underground will be running a complete service, although a few parts of the London Overground will be closed.
London 2012 could be first ever Paralympic Games to sell all its tickets - The Guardian
Despite renewed complaints over their unwieldy ticketing system, London 2012 organisers have sold tens of thousands more tickets to the Games and claimed vindication over their decision to charge for sections of the road cycling races.
Meanwhile, Paralympics officials expressed confidence the London Games could become the first to completely sell out in the event's 52-year history, following another round of strong ticket sales.
Among the tickets that went on sale for the first time on Tuesday were 25,000 for the climbing section of the cycling road race at Box Hill and the cycling time trial at Hampton Court.
Cycling fans are used to watching their heroes for nothing, but Locog said the men's events had sold out in a single day.
Initial demand meant the much-criticised Ticketmaster system again slowed to a crawl, amid a deluge of interest.
"The sheer volume of demand meant that we managed transactions slowly in the first 20 minutes. However transactions are now flowing through in their thousands," said a spokeswoman.
Timed tickets to ascend the Orbit sculpture in the Olympic Park also went on sale for the first time. In all, around 450,000 tickets to the Games remain – plus 1.3m football tickets that are expected to prove difficult to shift.
More than 1.2m of the 2.2m tickets on offer for the 2012 Paralympics, which run from 29 August to 9 September, have already been sold, the bulk of them in a much-promoted initial sales window in September. Another 125,000 were sold last week, the highest total in a single seven-day period to date.
"We're probably in the strongest position we've ever been in for ticket sales ahead of a Paralympics," said Craig Spence, head of communications for the Bonn-based International Paralympic Committee. "It would be great if we could sell out the Games. It's definitely possible; there's a real potential for us to do it.
"It would be amazing. Bear in mind that in Sydney 12 years ago they were still giving away a lot of tickets. Tickets being sold for a Paralympic Games is still a fairly new thing, so to sell all of them for full price would be pretty remarkable."
Adrian Bassett from Locog, which is responsible for the ticket sales, said the scale of early sales had been unprecedented: "A sellout is certainly possible. When you look at previous Paralympics it's quite often during the Olympics or just before that people wake up to the Paralympic Games, and there's a surge of ticket sales then. We're expecting to still be selling tickets quite close to the Games themselves."
Even if the Games opened with just a few seats unsold, it would be a big achievement, both for the London Games and the wider acceptance of Paralympic sport.
At most of the 15 summer Paralympics since the first, in Rome in 1960, seats have been given away. The 2000 Sydney Games sold 1.2m; Athens, four years later, 850,000. More than 3.6 million people watched Paralympic events in Beijing in 2008, but almost half the tickets were given away to schools and community groups. Even the 1.82m full-price tickets were relatively cheap, ranging from 30 to 80 yuan (about £3 to £8).
The London Paralympic prices remain competitive – aside from the opening and closing ceremony, the highest figure is £45, while 75% cost £20 or less
The interest in tickets has been prompted by a number of factors, Spence said, ranging from pre-Games coverage by Channel 4, which will broadcast the Paralympics, to the wider awareness of Paralympic sports inthe UK. He said: "People are buying into the concept. British Paralympic athletes are far more well known, say compared to China. We're in a far stronger starting position here than we were going into the Beijing Games. Paralympic sport is probably more accepted in this country than in any other country in the world."Interest has also been spurred by the likelihood of some home success: the British team won 42 golds in Beijing, and has come second in the medal table in the last three s
London 2012 Olympics: Syrian athletes may compete under neutral, five-ring Olympics flag - Daily Telegraph
The Syrian International Olympic Committee member Samih Moudallal told Telegraph Sport from Damascus last week that Assad had never intended to travel to London, even before his EU travel ban and that he had not been formally invited.
The other international president who has not been invited is Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe.
London Olympic Games organisers said they have only invited heads of state who are able to legally travel to the UK, and that precludes any of the 128 persons currently on the EU travel ban list. But anyone able to travel, like Argentinian president Cristina Fernandez, have been formally invited.
"We are in a tough position because if they are allowed into the country it is difficult not to invite them to the Olympic Games," an Olympic insider said.
Moudallal said in an interview before the latest atrocity that Locog had invited Syrian officials, including General Joumaa to attend the Games because they were independent.
"No government officials from Syria have been invited to attend the Olympic Games,"Moudallal said. "The president has not been invited, only the Olympic officials have been invited because they are independent and they have been invited to participate in all activities".
Currently the six to eight Syrian athletes who may qualify for the London Olympics have received support funding direct from IOC headquarters in Lausanne, rather than have the money filtered through the Syrian Olympic Committee.
Weightlifter Soraya Sobh, boxer Wassim Salameh, equestrian Ahmed Saber Hamsho and high jumper Majd Eddin Ghazal have qualified for the Games. Three female athletes are expected to be named on the team, including shooter Raya Zeineddine.
The IOC has yet to suspend the Syrian Olympic Committee, which is may do if it feels there is political pressure on the organisation. If that occurs the Syrian athletes will march and compete under the Olympic flag.
The only other athletes who will compete under the neutral flag are Kuwaiti athletes because their national Olympic committee has been suspended because of political interference.
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