Olympic Games of 2012
The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the Thirtieth Olympiad, took place in London, England, from July 27 to August 12, marking the third time the UK hosted the Summer Games. Over 10,000 athletes from more than 200 nations participated, showcasing a diverse range of sports. Notably, the United States led the medal tally with 104 medals, including 46 golds, while China and the UK followed in second and third place, respectively. The event was remembered for outstanding individual performances, particularly by athletes like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and Gabby Douglas, each making a significant mark in Olympic history.
Amid security concerns stemming from past terrorist incidents, the British government implemented extensive security measures, mobilizing over 23,000 personnel and investing approximately $14.5 billion into the games. The Olympics also made strides towards gender equality by including women's boxing for the first time and ensuring every participating nation sent male and female athletes, a landmark achievement in Olympic history. The games were a significant success, breaking numerous records and achieving high viewership ratings, especially in the United States where it became the most-viewed event in television history. The 2012 London Olympics left a lasting legacy, celebrated not only for its athletic achievements but also for its advancements in inclusivity and security.
Olympic Games of 2012
The 2012 Summer Olympics—the games of the thirtieth Olympiad—were held from July 27 to August 12, 2012, in London, England. It was the third time in Olympic history that the United Kingdom (UK) had hosted the summer games and the first time since 1948 that London had hosted the Summer Olympics. London is the first city to have hosted the Olympics three times. More than 10,000 athletes from more than two hundred independent nations and political territories worldwide competed in the 2012 games. The United States finished first in the total medal count, as American athletes captured a combined 104 medals, including forty-six gold medals—more than any other nation in 2012. China and the UK finished second and third in the medals tally, respectively, with eighty-eight and sixty-five medals. The United Kingdom is the only nation to have captured a gold medal in all thirty Olympiads of the modern era. Furthermore, the UK’s sixty-five medals was the nation’s best performance in the Summer Olympics since 1908.
Memorable athletes whose performances garnered considerable international media attention at the 2012 Olympics included Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, American swimmer Michael Phelps, and American gymnast Gabby Douglas. Bolt won three gold medals in the 100- and 200-meter dash and the 4×100-meter relay. Phelps won six medals, including four gold, thus setting an all-time record for the most total medals and most gold medals won by an athlete in the games’ history (twenty-two and eighteen, respectively). Meanwhile, Douglas became the first African American to win the gold medal for individual all-around performance in gymnastics.
Background
Tremendous concern regarding security surrounded the London games, given the fact that terrorist bombings of London trains and buses had been carried out on July 7, 2005 (the day after London had officially been awarded the 2012 games), killing fifty-two people, and because massive rioting and protests had taken place in London during the summer of 2011. The British government mobilized a security force of more than 23,000 personnel, including 12,500 officers from eleven different British law enforcement agencies. Additionally, more than 13,000 military troops provided additional security. The Royal Navy and Royal Marines patrolled the waters at aquatic events such as sailing and windsurfing, while the Royal Air Force attempted to monitor security threats from the skies. The British government invested approximately $14.5 billion in the Olympics to cover expenses such as security, transportation, improved athletic facilities, and construction of the Olympic Park and Olympic Village, which housed the athletes.
US Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney (who had managed the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah) generated international controversy before the London games officially opened when, during an interview with NBC News, he publicly questioned the United Kingdom’s ability to carry out a successful Olympics. Romney described the UK’s preparations for the Olympics as “disconcerting.” His comments drew condemnation from both sides of the Atlantic, most sharply from British Prime Minister David Cameron, who responded, “We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities in the world. Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere.”
New sports at the 2012 games included mixed-gender doubles competition in tennis and women’s boxing in three weight divisions—flyweight, lightweight, and middleweight. The decision to include female boxing was controversial to social conservatives, who felt the physically brutal nature of boxing should render it a male-only sport, as well as the British Medical Association (BMA), a professional alliance of licensed physicians and medical students. A spokesman for the BMA, quoted by the British Broadcast Corporation, criticized the International Olympic Committee’s decision to incorporate women’s boxing in the 2012 games by declaring that boxing should “play no part in a modern Olympic games” due to the inherent risk of injury posed by the sport. Overall, however, the British public received positively the expansion of boxing—one of the most popular sports in the United Kingdom—to include women’s competition. The UK’s Nicola Adams captured the gold medal in the flyweight division. Additionally, the 2012 games were the first in Olympic history to which every participating nation sent both male and female athletes, after Saudi Arabia included two women in its Olympic delegation.
Impact
By all measures, the 2012 London Olympics enjoyed phenomenal success. Forty-four world records and 117 Olympic records were broken in several sports, including track and field, swimming, cycling, and weightlifting, among others. Usain Bolt established an Olympic record in the men’s 100-meter dash by posting a time of 9.63 seconds. David Rudisha of Kenya set a world record in the men’s 800-meter sprint with an incredible time of just under 1 minute, 40 seconds. Chinese swimmer Yang Sun set two records, including an Olympic record in the men’s 400-meter freestyle and a world record in the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle. Meanwhile, American swimmers Rebecca Soni and Dana Vollmer established world records in the women’s 200-meter breaststroke and women’s 100-meter butterfly, respectively.
NBC, the telecommunications corporation that broadcast the Olympics in the United States, experienced a ratings bonanza. Through its various television outlets (NBC network, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports Network, and the Spanish-language channel Telemundo), NBC broadcast more than 5,500 hours of Olympic coverage. An estimated 70 percent of all Americans watched at least some Olympic programming, accounting for more than 219 million viewers. Over the seventeen days of the games, NBC averaged 31 million viewers during prime time, making the 2012 Olympics the most watched event on American television of all time. The 2012 games drew the highest ratings from American viewers of any Olympics not hosted by the United States since the 1976 Montreal games. Furthermore, NBC’s web page, which contained live video streams of competition, registered almost 2 billion visits from online users. This success countered initial predictions that there would be a decline in viewers from the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
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