(and for goodness sake, stop moaning, what did you expect? Some cheap-ish tickets, some bloody expensive tickets, and access optimised for people with money. You can't complain the Olympics cost too much in one breath, and then complain there aren't enough free tickets in the next. If we're going to pay for these Games without raising taxes, then people are going to have to pay for admission. Living in London doesn't give anyone carte blanche to swan into the 100m final for nothing, for heaven's sake. Get a sense of scale. There are only 80,000 tickets for the opening ceremony so the price is irrelevant, you aren't going to get one. Indeed there are only 8.8 million tickets up for grabs altogether, which is sufficient for just 1 in every 7 Britons to turn up just once. The big story isn't going to be how much the tickets cost, the big story is going to be how few people get any)
...the London 2012 organisers have also sneaked out the Games timetable. It's only draft at the moment but it's probably mostly accurate. Want to know which days the basketball's on, or how little mountain biking there is, or even when the <spit> marathons are? The entire schedule's now online, so you can start planning your Olympic fortnight in advance. They've presented it by event, and by day, and also across a big matrix in a pdf. But I thought I'd do a really simple version here, for future reference.
Basketball, Boxing, Diving, Football, Gymnastics, Handball, Hockey, Sailing, Volleyball, Water Polo
Track cycling
Synchronised swimming, Triathlon
Athletics, Wrestling
Marathon, Race walk
BMX
Canoe sprint, Taekwondo
Mountain bike, Pentathlon, Closing ceremony
Oh, and I believe I've spotted another major reason why the Marathon isn't coming to Tower Hamlets. There are two marathons, both on Sundays - the women's on 5th August and the men's on 12th August. It's the men's that's the problem. It's taking place the day after all the rest of the athletics has finished, which means there'll be no spectators in the Olympic Stadium. And it's taking place on the same day as the Closing Ceremony, which is presumably why the Olympic Stadium needs to be empty. Tons of setting-up will be taking place to create a global televisual showcase, and the last thing the designers need is 80 runners turning up in the middle of the preparations. The marathon's avoiding the East End because it's been scheduled for a day the Olympic Stadium's in quarantine. Simple. The Games timetable is the problem, not the perceived ugliness of Whitechapel.
Anyway, as of now you can start planning which events you'd like to attend when, and possibly how much it might cost. But prepare to be terribly disappointed when everyone else beats you to buying the blessed tickets.
