Olympic Clock Stops After Less Than 24hrs
The digital clock unveiled on Monday evening in Trafalgar Square, London, counting down to the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games – has stopped – less than 24 hours after it started.
The clock was unveiled by Mayor of London Boris Johnson, chair of the London Organising Committee (LOCOG) Seb Coe, Omega ambassador Jessica Ennis, and the president of Omega Stephen Urquhart during a ceremony on Monday evening.
Omega is the official timekeeper of the Olympic Games, and has been since 1932.
A spokesperson for the Swiss-based Swatch Group said: ‘We are obviously very disappointed that the clock has suffered this technical issue. The Omega London 2012 countdown clock was developed by our experts and fully tested ahead of the launch in Trafalgar Square’.
Fireworks went off at exactly 1930 GMT on Monday as the countdown clock reached 500 days to go to the opening of the London 2012 Games, which was earlier unveiled ‘tug-of-war’ style, by Team GB Olympic Gold medal rowers Pete Reed and Andy Hodge, and sailors Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson.
However with 500 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes, and 56 seconds, the clock froze.
According to media reports, the 6.5 metre high, 4 ton clock, was finally started again late last night.
Meanwhile, tickets for London 2012 have gone on sale, with around 6.6m tickets for the Olympic Games, and approx 2m for the Paralympic Games available after registering between 15th March and 26th April.??
The ticket allocation is not a first come, first serve basis, and there is no advantage by applying early – the tickets will instead be allocated via ballot, with a 42 day registering period between 15th March and 26th April.
