After reviewing the questionnaire it has allowed me to plan the format / structure and style of my finished product. As stated in question 7, 65% of people us the television to keep up to date with the olympics, and only 5% would use the newspaper, yet compare this to question 8 where 55% of people said they would be interested in a zine style publication that included highlights of london 2012. Because of the I have decided to create a newspaper that includes highlights of the 2012 olympics, in hope that this format would persuade people to use newspapers more as a source of information.
55% of people also said that they knew some but very little history about the olympic games, and a further 30% said they would like to learn more. As a result I will use my research of the history of the olympic games to produce a pages in my newspaper about the history of the games and how they came about, this will help people to understand more about the games that they are interested in, as they keep up to date.
55% of people said that they occassionally watched London 2012 Olympic games on the television, and a further 30% always watched it, showing that 85% of my audience show interest jut like me in the olympic games, making my topic both current and interesting.
As the favourite sport was diving and the favourite athlete was Tom Daley I will include a special page in my newspaper that specifically talks about Tom Daley and his diving as this will appeal most to my target audience. However, I have also decided to include special pages on Jess Ennis, Mo Farrah, Beth Tweddle and Victoria Pendleton.
Archive for August 2012
Questionnaire: My Response
Closing Ceremony: London 2012 (highlights)
Kim Gavin, Artistic Director of the Olympic Closing Ceremony, brought together Britain’s biggest international stars and emerging talent to perform in an event that celebrated the achievements of the world’s greatest athletes during the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The Ceremony at the London 2012 Olympic Stadium paid tribute to UK music, fashion and culture.
British artists who performed in the Closing Ceremony included The Who, The Spice Girls, Take That, Tinie Tempah, George Michael, Fatboy Slim, Madness, Jessie J, Annie Lennox, Kaiser Chiefs, Taio Cruz, Beady Eye with lead vocalist Liam Gallagher, Ray Davies, Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor, Pet Shop Boys, One Direction, Muse, Elbow, Emeli Sandé, Eric Idle, Julian Lloyd Webber, Ed Sheeran, Richard Jones, Mike Rutherford and Nick Mason.
International recording artist Annie Lennox said: “That mixture of street culture, music, fashion and sport – these are the ways working class kids have come through and become something in the world.”
Singers Jessie J, Taio Cruz and Tinie Tempah emerged from three limousines to sing their numbers. The Spice Girls entered the Stadium in five black cabs for renditions of ‘Spice Up Your Life’ and 'Wannabe’, and Russell Brand performed ‘Pure Imagination’ and ‘I Am the Walrus’ atop a psychedelic bus.
Eric Idle led a singalong of ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’, from the film Monty Python’s 'Life of Brian', the Kaiser Chiefs covered The Who’s ‘Pinball Wizard’ and The Who led a triumphant rendition of ‘My Generation’ to close the show.
Eric Idle said: ‘I'm delighted to be an Olympian, and proud to have been chosen to represent my country at Show Business. I'm hoping for a brass medal.’
A tribute to British fashion was soundtracked to songs by David Bowie and featured appearances from supermodels Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Lily Donaldson, Stella Tennant, Karen Elson, Lily Cole, Georgia May Jagger, Jourdan Dunn and David Gandy.
Seb Coe, Chair, London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), said: ‘Kim Gavin has delivered a fitting celebration of the athletes, the volunteers, this City and the whole country, who have helped us stage a great Olympic Games.
'We have shown the best of us throughout these Games and provided the platform for the world’s greatest athletes to shine. I would like to pay tribute to the volunteers, the performers and the country for making Games so memorable for the athletes and sports fans of the world.’
Artistic Director Kim Gavin said: ‘I was lucky because Seb Coe basically just asked me to put on a party, a celebration of London and the UK. To me the sport was always the main event, and I wanted to create a great after show party for the athletes, the volunteers, the spectators and people watching around the world. My approach, just like any party, was to start with the music. We wanted the Ceremony to reflect on UK music and how good and global British music is.’
A volunteer cast of 3,500 rehearsed on average for 60 hours each in a total of 135 rehearsals during evenings and weekends at two east London rehearsal sites. Some 350 child volunteers were drawn from 10 schools in the six east London Host Boroughs.
Questionnaire Results
Here are the results of my questionnaire after it had been live for 1 day. I am still hoping to keep an eye on this to see if more people respond however this is enough to gain feedback, as I have asked a varied age bracket between 17 - 43.
Olympic Games: Day 17 (The final day)
The last day of Olympic action brought Britain a gold and a couple of silvers and saw a particularly thrilling men's volleyball final.
18:34 BST
Farewell
And that is the end of my Olympics, and of the Guardian's daily live blogs. I'm off to Holland House, the Olympics' party capital (the athletes' village might rival it, but I can't get into that), to watch the closing ceremony with some Dutch commentary and to shed a few tears into a pint of Heineken. Over the last two weeks I have gorged on sport to such an extent that at any minute I might feel a rumble in the pit of my stomach and accidentally vomit out Carmelita Jeter.
After the feast, the famine. Good luck going cold turkey, sports fans. Enjoy the closing ceremony, maybe even in the company of our own Tim Jonze. I'm off. Bye.
Dominican Republic's 400m hurdles gold medalist Felix Sanchez sums up the way we all feel as the Olympics comes to an end. Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images
Updated at 18:37 BST
18:23 BST
Britain's final medal winner speaks
"I had a lot to make up on, so I needed that run. I made a few mistakes today. I'm just so pleased. My legs kept running for me, and I'm so happy," says Sam Murray, after winning her modern pentathlon silver medal.
"Four years ago I was doing my A Levels at school. I'd started pentathlon already but I was by no means performing to an international level. I started at the University of Bath in 2008 and since then I've progressed through the ranks. Honestly, if you have a goal, if there's anything you want to achieve in life, you can do it. If I can do it, I'm a normal girl, anybody can do anything they really want to do."
18:20 BST
Modern pentathlon
"The OBS direction of the final Modern Pentathlon run was a disgrace. A fabulous event was ruined by the director following the leader all the time and giving no indication of how far Sam Murray was behind," complains Fraser Thomas. "What a sport though."
There's no doubt that modern pentathlon represented one of the best tickets of the Olympics – you got to see three venues and an entire day of hotly-contested sporting action across several disciplines, all for the one price.
18:18 BST
Closing ceremony live blog
There is one more Olympic event to look forward to, and The Guardian will inevitably be liveblogging it. We're looking forward to it so much that we've already started – you can find it here.
18:14 BST
No more Olympic sport!
The final sporting event of the 2012 London Olympics is over. There is nothing to see here. Please move along.
18:12 BST
Modern pentathlon – it's gold for Lithuania, and silver for Team GB!
Sam Murray wins Britain's 65th and final Olympic medal of the 2012 Games! Laura Asadauskaite wins a deserved gold after an extremely impressive combined event, and is looking considerably fresher than any of the other finishers. Murray takes silver, and Marques third. Britain's other athlete, Mhairi Spence, comes 21st.
18:11 BST
Modern pentathlon
Sam Murray has entered the arena in second, to an enormous whooping reception. Marques is still third, and not that far behind Murray.
18:09 BST
Modern pentathlon
Nobody will catch Asadauskaite now, not unless she decides to take a nap under a tree. The question is whether Marques, who is a poor runner and fading fast, can hold on to third, and whether Britain's Sam Murray can win silver.
18:08 BST
Modern pentathlon
Murray has finished her shooting and overtaken Marques to rise into the silver medal position.
18:07 BST
Modern pentathlon
The leaders are coming towards the end of their second of three laps of the combined event course. Murray remains third, but she's catching Marques. It's down to the shoot now. Asadauskaite is in the lead and looking extremely strong.
18:05 BST
Modern pentathlon
Sam Murray is third! But she's nearly 22 seconds behind the leading pair. Asadauskaite, clearly a better runner than Marques, is now alone in the lead.
Updated at 18:06 BST
18:04 BST
Modern pentathlon
Asadauskaite and Marques seem to be contesting the top two positions, and there's a big old gang of athletes chasing bronze, of whom Britain's Sam Murray is one. Can anyone catch the top two?
Updated at 18:04 BST
18:02 BST
Modern pentathlon
Marques remains in the lead as she ends the first lap of the course, but Lithuania's Laura Asadauskaite is now breathing down her neck. Not sure who's in third place.
18:01 BST
Modern pentathlon
Yana Marques of Brazil is way out ahead after a good first shoot, but she is not reputed to be a particularly speedy runner.
17:59 BST
Modern pentathlon
The modern pentathlon combined event has started. Can Britain grab one final medal here?
17:53 BST
Cadbury in chocolate-coated Olympic sabotage
Cadbury have sent all of the Team GB gymnasts an entire kilogram of personalised Dairy Milk. Oi, Cadbury – those girls are in training for Rio 2014!
17:46 BST
What the Olympic athletes' giant canteen looks like
If you want to see where Olympic athletes eat, this was the view from Martyn Rooney's seat this lunchtime.
17:38 BST
So with nothing else to bother me, here some top threes
My top three moments I actually witnessed:
- Mo Farah wins the 10,000m
- Chad Le Clos edges out Michael Phelps in the 200m butterfly
- David Rudisha breaks the 800m world record
My top three moments I didn't actually witness:
- Mo Farah wins the 5,000m
- Chris Hoy wins gold on the final day at the velodrome
- The incredibly close finish to the women's triathlon
My top three sports that nobody here will watch for another four years:
- Handball
- Volleyball
- Rhythmic gymnastics (group only)
My top three sports whose inventors must have been on something:
- Synchronised swimming
- Dressage
- The pole vault
Updated at 17:40 BST
17:29 BST
Wrestler goes from hospital bed to podium
A wrestler who was taken to hospital by ambulance after his heart started racing during a quarter-final defeat got up from his bed and returned to win a bronze medal at the London Olympics on Sunday, Reuters are reporting.
Azerbaijan's Khetag Gazyumov, 29, left the wrestling mat in a wheelchair after his heart rate soared to a dangerous 260 beats per minute, compared to a typical 60-100. But he decided to return to the Games when he heard he had earned a place in the bronze medal playoff because he had been beaten by one of the eventual finalists.
He comfortably beat Rustam Iskandari of Tajikistan on the way to bronze.
"I clenched my fist and decided to do the best I could for my country," he told reporters. "It's strange, but it's sport."
"I clenched my fist and decided to do the best I could for my country," he told reporters. "It's strange, but it's sport."
17:24 BST
No sport!
There is currently no Olympic sport to report on. The modern pentathlon's concluding discipline, the "combined event", gets under way at 6pm. Until then, nothing. It's ending, guys!
17:14 BST
Farah to carry the flag at the closing ceremony!
That's Yasmin Farah, the Djibouti table tennis player. You're more likely to recognise the Dominican Republic's flag-waver, Felix Sanchez, Ethiopia's Tirunesh Dibaba, Kenya's David Rudisha, Puerto Rico's Javier Culson, Switzerland's triathlite Nicola Spirig and the Kiwi rower Mahe Dysdale. America's flag will be carried by Bryshon Nellum, who was shot in both legs in a gang shooting four years ago (he wasn't involved in a gang himself, just to be clear) and recovered to win silver in the 4x400m relay on Friday night. Ben Ainslie does the honours for Britain.
17:08 BST
The view from Brazil
Jonathan Watts, The Guardian's Latin America correspondent, has just filed an overview of Brazil's performance in London as they look ahead to hosting the Games in four years' time.
Dismay here that the Brazilian men's volleyball team let the gold slip away, particularly after the football team's loss in the final despite being firm favourites. Along with sympathy, there is bound to be some soul-searching in the coming days about whether the country's most highly-rated competitors are too complacent. The same might be said of the country's Olympic strategists.
Although the women's volleyball team gave the country its big golden Olympic moment yesterday and a new crop of heroes to take forward to Rio 2016, Brazil has achieved only modest success in London - and certainly not the usually strong gains made by the next host nation.
Australia ahead of Sydney 2000, China ahead of Beijing 2008 and Team GB ahead of London all notched up significantly improved medal tallies in the preceding Games because they had long-term strategies to nurture a big crop of potential medal winners. This was one indication of the preparedness of all three host nations
But Brazil has actually sent a smaller squad to London than it did to Beijing. On the medal table, the team looks likely to finish below North Korea, New Zealand and Kazakhstan, which is not a great showing for the world's 5th biggest population and 6th biggest economy.
Of course medals are not the only measure of success. And Brazil can still improve enormously in 2016. There is huge potential here. But as with other preparations for the next Olympics, the big question is whether they will leave it too late.
Updated at 17:17 BST
17:05 BST
Just modern pentathlon to go!
That leaves just one more gold medal to be decided, and it'll happen at Greenwich Park.
17:03 BST
Water polo gold for Croatia!
Croatia complete an 8-5 victory over Italy in the water polo final. and as the celebrations begin lots of coaching staff are getting very wet indeed.
17:02 BST
Basketball gold for the USA!
The United States have beaten Spain 107-100 to retain their gold medal. It was a pretty decent match, but Spain never really looked likely to actually win it.
17:00 BST
Modern pentathlon
Adrienn Toth, the last athlete to do the showjumping, has a bit of an ugly round, compiling 100 penalty points. That puts her fifth overall, just behind Murray. All of those top five will start the final event within 10 seconds of each other.
16:58 BST
Modern pentathlon
Brazil's Yane Marques completes her round with 48 penalty points. That would put her level with Laura Asadauskaite in first place, with Murray still starting the running and shooting bit eight seconds later. There is one last rider to come.
16:56 BST
Basketball
With a little over a minute remaining of the fourth quarter, the USA lead Spain 102-93 and are looking all set for gold.
16:55 BST
Modern pentathlon
Sam Murray has just completed her horse jumping. She knocked two fences down, and got a few time penalty points as well, for a total of 60 penalty points. There are two athletes still to go, but as it stands she's third and would start the final running and shooting event with an eight second handicap.
16:52 BST
Darts in the Olympics
"Sad news today about darts legend Sid Waddell," writes Simon McMahon. "Anyone who can come up with the line 'When Alexander of Macedonia was 33 he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer … Bristow's only 27!' deserves every tribute going, but surely the best one of all would be to have darts recognised as an Olympic sport?"
A nice idea, but try convincing Jacques Rogge.
Updated at 16:52 BST
16:50 BST
Water polo final
The fourth and final quarter has just got under way, with Italy winning the mad crazy sprint to the ball (the best part of the game, in my limited experience). Croatia, who I saw beating Greece on the first Sunday of the Games (the sum of my limited experience), lead 5-3.
16:47 BST
A member of the British armed forces writes...
This if from Brownly, below the line, about his/her experience of the Olympics, where they have been busy being "generally pretty nice and just cracking on and doing things quickly and efficiently":
The hours are long - most of us are doing 12 on, 12 off every day and because it wasn't planned that so many of us would be involved, we're living in a right motley mix of 'accommodations' - sleeping in multi-storey car-parks, fields etc. But then, we do that sort of thing quite often anyway!
The upside though is that virtually everyone you meet or deal with is happy - the visitors, the volunteers, the police, the athletes and their people. The venues and the Park are fab places, so with the people and the atmosphere, the work environment is pretty special.I've made out like a bandit with getting to see some top quality sport - sometimes on duty, sometimes off and have been watching the BBC and checking into this blog during my breaks to keep up with the stuff I've missed.Of course, a few blokes had to postpone their weddings and a lot had to cancel holidays (most of us would ordinarily be off on summer block leave), but we won't be losing the time off and we're getting some compensation so we won't be out of pocket. Most Forces wives will tell you that they only ever put things on the calendar in pencil anyway - all dates are provisional!
16:43 BST
Men's basketball final liveblog
The link I posted to the liveblog earlier didn't work. Here's one that (hopefully) will.
16:40 BST
Modern pentathlon
Britain's Mhairi Spence didn't have a wonderful time on her horse, Coronado's Son. She knocked down one obstacle, earning 80 penalty points, and didn't quite finish in time, earning another 24, to end with 1096 points. This puts her in 18th place on this discipline (one place behind the athlete who first rode the same horse, interestingly). She's currently eighth, with seven riders to come.
16:36 BST
Handball gold for France!
It's all over in the Basketball Arena. France have defended their title, and there are scenes of wild jubilation among the white-shirted players. Sweden's players slump to the ground. Can we start playing this sport in Britain, please?
16:33 BST
Athletes' village
Ever wondered where the athletes' village is, relative to the Olympic Stadium? Well, maybe you can deduce it from this.