SOURCE : www.boston.com
In just over a week, the years, months, days, and minutes athletes have spent training will be put on display. The 10,000 competitors who will be vying for medals in 26 different sports have begun arriving in London. Here’s a look at many of those athletes competing for a spot in the upcoming Games, which run from July 27 to Aug. 12. -- Lloyd Young (35 photos total)
India's badminton player Jwala Gutta exercises at a gym before a practice session in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on July 12. Gutta thinks it may take India 100 years to emulate China's sporting success but the badminton doubles specialist hopes to bring her country a step closer to that goal by earning a medal at the Games. (Krishnendu Halder/Reuters) #
Italian boxer Romina Marenda (right) punches during a training session at the Military Olympic Center in Rome on Oct. 6, 2011. Marenda, a lightweight, will be one of Italy's biggest hopes when women's boxing makes its debut at the Olympics this year, as long as she manages to qualify at the world championships in China in May. (Tony Gentile/Reuters) #
Olympic hopeful Abdul Rashid Bangura (27) jumps rope while training at the national stadium in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown on April 25. Sierra Leone's national boxing team was scrambling to raise money to send athletes to an Olympic qualifying event starting in Morocco on Friday, but lack of financing and government support means the competition is likely out of reach for most of the national team. (Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters) #
Flavio Marazzi (left) and Enrico De Maria (right) of the Swiss Star class sailing team exercise during a training session with their coach Leo Held at the Swiss National Sport Center in Magglingen on April 26. The Swiss Star class race sailing team are preparing their boat at the shipyard in Leissigen before leaving for the Star Class World championship in Hyeres in France and for the 2012 Olympic Games. (Pascal Lauener/Reuters) #
Kim Yeon-koung of South Korea's women's national volleyball team undergoes an acupuncture session with Park Ji-hun the doctor in charge of the team, at a gym in Jincheon on July 5, 2012. South Korean athletes looking to stay in peak shape for the London Olympics are turning to asian rather than western medicine to stave off aches and sprains that could derail their medal chances. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters) #
Young Somali athletes exercise on July 7 in Mogadishu as they prepare themselves for the upcoming Olympics. The athletes training facilities are pock-marked with bullet holes from years of brutal conflict but as the four athletes, two men and two women, offer a glimmer of hope for the war-ravaged nation. The athletes, aged between 18 and 20, have spent the last six months in camp, but life has been far from easy. The two female athletes were often forced to exercise indoors after threats by extremist Shebab insurgents. (Mustafa Abdi/AFP/Getty Images) #
Mongolian Olympic boxer Tugstsogt Nyambayar prepares to train in a gym in Ulan Bator on Oct. 27, 2011. While the elite of the sporting world tune up for the London Olympics in world class facilities, other gold medal hopefuls are forced to make do with less salubrious surroundings. In Mongolia, Nyambayar trains alongside children playing basketball in an old gym with paint peeling from the walls. Children play on ancient free weight machines, climb ropes and roll around on the floor mimicking their wrestling hero as he warms up for his training session in the corner. (Kieran Doherty/Reuters) #
Marathon runner Gladys Tejeda, the first Peruvian athlete who qualified for the London Olympic Games, runs during her training in the Andean province of Junin on May 14. A private company will take Gladys' mother Marcelina Pucuhuaranga (69) to London as part of the "Thank you Mom" program. The program will take about 120 mothers of different athletes around the world to attend the games. Tejeda, the youngest of nine children, returned to her hometown to visit her mother and to focus on training where she will run more than 20 km every day in the highlands. (Pilar Olivares/Reuters) #
US marathon runner Meb Keflezighi stretches during training for the London Olympics in Mammoth Lakes, Calif. on May 30. Keflezighi (37) is the oldest American ever to qualify for the Olympic marathon. He trains at around 9,000 feet in Mammoth to increase his red blood cells and boost his endurance. (Lucy Nicholson /Reuters) #
Turkish Olympic gymnast Goksu Uctas trains at Murat Canbas sports hall in Bolu, western Turkey, on May 29. So excited was Uctas at the thought of becoming Turkey's first Olympic gymnast, she wanted the five Olympic rings tattooed on her arm. For now, though, the London-bound athlete has settled for a silver necklace of the famous symbol, which she twirls excitedly in her fingers. (Murad Sezer/Reuters) #
Portuguese judoka Telma Monteiro speaks with her coach during a training session in Lisbon on June 12. Falling out of trees and sliding down stairs on old window blinds are more than a warm childhood memory for Portugal's best female judoka, they shaped Telma Monteiro into her nation's top medal hope at the Games. (Rafael Marchante/Reuters) #
Gaza runner Bahaa al-Farra stretches during a training session in Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on March 25. The 19-year-old trains for three hours a day in Gaza's Yarmouk soccer stadium, along the dusty streets and on the beach in well worn trainers that were donated to the Palestine Olympic Committee by wealthy Gulf state, Qatar, as he prepares to race at the London Olympics. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters) #
South African Oscar Pistorius tries a start during a training session in Gemona on July 13 near Udine, Italy. Pistorius needed a track in Europe to train at so the mayor of Gemona built him one. The double-amputee runner will take his final few steps to the London Olympics and history at his training camp in northern Italy, running lap after lap on those carbon fiber blades and focusing on his new goal of making the semifinals at the world's biggest meet. (Paolo Giovannini/Associated Press) #
US Olympic rowing hopeful Genevra "Gevvie" Stone leaves the boathouse for an early morning training session on the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. on March 28. Stone, the top-ranked US female single skuller, narrowly missed a spot in the 2008 US team for Beijing but is on the team this year. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) #
Brazilian swimmer Poliana Okimoto attends a training session at the Maria Lenk Olympic Center in Rio de Janeiro on March 8. Okimoto, who won a bronze medal in the open water race at the swimming world championships in Rome 2009, will take part in the 2012 London Olympics. (Sergio Moraes/Reuters) #
More links and information
London 2012 - olympic.org
Olympics 2012: Carrying the flame - Big Picture post, 5/30/12
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