As the organizers of the London 2012 Olympics were presented with the finished athletes' village on Friday, exactly six months ahead of the games, they stressed that preparations for the Games remain on time and on budget.
The Summer Games are expected to attract 900,000 visitors to the United Kingdom's capital in July and August. The festivities will kick off with an opening ceremony designed by famed film director Danny Boyle, who has a lot to live up to after the elaborate display that launched the last Summer Games in Beijing.
Boyle -- whose movies include "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Trainspotting" -- says the ceremony is "an enormous bloody thing" and that he plans to look to the ceremony that launched the 2000 Sydney Games for inspiration. His event will include the ringing of a massive bell and a reference to the country's National Health Service.
So far, about one-third of the Games tickets have been sold, Visit Britain's Jo Leslie told CTV News Channel on Friday -- noting it isn't too late to plan a trip to the event. She said hotels rooms are in abundance in London, with about 140,000 in total, so there should be plenty of places left to stay.
"The Olympics aren't going to need even half of that," she said.
But with the influx of tourists, there have been some local concerns about congestion on public transit and the roads, a long-standing problem in London's core. The subway is likely to beef up security during the Games in the wake of the 2005 bombing attacks, which happened just after the London Olympics were announced.
In fact, the city is expected to be crammed with some 23,700 security personnel during the Games, according to the local organizing committee. The number, announced in December, was double the original estimate, although organizers said they weren't responding to a specific threat. The price also doubled, from about C$425 million to C$870 million.
Security organizers have already staged a training exercise on the Thames River, and have another planned, to be held in Scotland.
With the U.K.'s unemployment at its highest in several decades, there has been fierce debate over the vast amounts of cash being poured into the Games.
"When they were awarded in 2005, those were very different economic times than they are now," noted CTV's Ben O'Hara-Byrne from London on Friday. "This is not an easy time to hold a very expensive, world-class event... As time goes on, I think people will certainly get into the spirit of it."
And, the Games won't be without some benefits to local residents. In addition to construction and organizational jobs surrounding the massive undertaking, locals will also benefit from a project that reclaimed formerly-toxic land, and an athletes' village that will be partially converted to affordable housing.
With files from The Associated Press
