LONDON—From the 10,490 athletes heading to London, to the flock of 70 sheep taking part in the opening ceremony on July 27, AFP takes a look at the 2012 Olympic Games in numbers.
* 11 million tickets for Olympic and Paralympic events, of which 75 percent will be sold to spectators in Britain. Sponsors, officials and broadcasters can buy 13 percent of the tickets, while the remaining 12 percent are for purchase through National Olympic Committees in other countries.
* £9.3 billion ($14.5 billion dollars, 11.6 billion euros) has been spent on staging the games. It is almost four times the estimated cost of hosting the Games at the time of London’s bid in 2005. The original budgets for security and for the opening and closing ceremonies have both been doubled. Security will now cost an estimated £553 million, while the ceremonies have a budget of £81 million.
* 10,490 athletes will compete in 26 Olympic sports in a total of 302 medal events. They will be subject to 5,000 anti-doping tests. Some 4,200 Paralympic athletes are taking part in 503 medal events, in 20 different sports.
* 1 million pieces of sports equipment: Some 26,400 tennis balls, 600 basketballs and 6,000 archery targets have been bought for the Olympics.
* 150,000 condoms will be provided to competitors in the athletes’ village.
* 34 venues across Britain, including nine inside the Olympic Park in east London. The Olympic Stadium, at the heart of the park, took three years to build and uses 10,000 tonnes of steel. The venues are home to 10,000 temporary toilets — “enough to service the entire population of Malta”, organisers claim.
* two million people will visit London for the Games, according to Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson. Spectators will make some 20 million journeys on London’s creaking public transport system, including three million on the busiest day.
* 14 million meals will be served at the Games, using 25,000 loaves of bread, 100 tonnes of meat, 75,000 liters of milk and 330 tonnes of fruit and vegetables.
* 46,000 construction workers built the Olympic Park and Village, and the Games themselves will involve a total workforce of 200,000, including 100,000 contractors and 70,000 volunteers.
* 12,875 kilometers (8,000 miles) route for the torch relay. The Olympic flame is travelling around Britain over ten weeks, travelling 177 miles a day on average.
* 70 sheeps, 12 horses, three cows, two goats, 10 chickens and three sheepdogs. A veritable menagerie will take part in the opening ceremony, when the Olympic Stadium will be transformed into a rural British idyll.