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Big roars to you all…we’ve been quiet lately as we have been watching some amazing sport…can you guess what it was??

Yes…its the Olympic and Paralympic games. We met some friends and they told us more about it.

Give a big roar to Mandeville and Wenlock…

They are the mascots of the London 2012 Olympics….

We learnt lots about the Olympics from Mandeville and Wenlock…. would you like to learn some more?

The Olympic games are like a sports day at school but for the people who are the best in the world…

The Olympics started a long time ago in Ancient Greece in the year 776BC…that is over 2500 years ago! The Ancient Games involved races, wrestling and chariot racing! The atheletes competed to honour Zeus, the King of the Ancient Greek Gods.

When the Romans conquered the Greeks, sports competitions continued but the Olympic Games stopped happening.

The first Modern Olympics happened in 1896 once again, they happened in Greece! This time there was no chariot racing but lots of new events like swimming, running. Here is a picture of the first modern Olympics.

Every 4 years, the Olympics moves to a different city around the world and the worlds greatest atheletes travel to the city to compete! There are also the Paralympic games, the Winter Olympics and the Youth Olympics for younger people. We will learn more about the Paralympics later…

This year it was London’s turn to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games…

Would you like to know more…

Each games has to have a logo… this is the logo for London 2012 Olympic games..

The Logo changes for each city that hosts the Olympics…. but each Olympics must have the Olympic Rings…

The Olympic motto is ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’, which is Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger”.

Sports women and men come from every country in the world to compete to show they are the best in the world… This is the Great Britain team for the Olympics and Paralympics..

Before the Olympics can start…the Olympics flame has to be brought from Olympia in Greece to the new Olympic stadium.

This is a picture of the flame being lit in Greece.

The flame then travels to the city where the Olympics is being held…a very famous person helped bring it to London…

The torch is used to light a huge cauldron in the Olympic stadium…

Once that is lit…the Olympics can begin!! This is the cauldron at London 2012…

Now the games can begin…

There are lots of different sports…

like Rowing..

Athletics….

cycling

diving and swimming….

archery….

and equestrian

as well as lots more sports… to find out about all the different sports that make up an Olympics visit…

http://www.london2012.com/sports/

In each sport…. the competitors compete in heats…

The winners of the heats go on to compete in semi-finals…

The winners of the semi finals go on to the important final….

and the winners become champions of the world and get given medals to show how well they have done..

The winner gets given a Gold Medal…

The second place person gets given a Silver Medal

The third place person gets given a Bronze Medal…

The winners are very excited to get a medal…

Great Britain did very well at the Olympics and we got

29 Gold medals

17 Silver medals

19 Bronze medals

How many did we get altogether??

What a great Olympics…

Even more exciting…its now time for the Paralympic games to start. These are games where atheletes with a physical disability compete to become the best in the world. Some athletes may have lost a leg or an arm, some are blind and some have other disabilities.

The paralympics is called the paralympics because it occurs alongside..or Parallel to the olympic games…

The games don’t use the Olympic rings as an emblem…they have a symbol made up of three colours; red, blue and green and arranged in the shape of an Agito (which is latin for ‘I move’)