Baku, July 27 (AZERTAC). The official opening ceremony of the XXX Summer Olympic Games will be held on July 28 at 00:12 local time. In fact, the Olympics started yesterday by the football matches of women’s team.

The games will be officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. A short film starring Daniel Craig as secret agent James Bond will be screened during the television coverage of the ceremony. Sir Paul McCartney has announced he will perform at the end of the ceremony.

The closing ceremony of the London 2012 Summer Olympics will start on 12 August 2012. The ceremony will include a handover by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, to Eduardo Paes, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, the host city of 2016 Summer Olympics. The Spice Girls are rumoured to be reuniting for the first time since 2008 to perform in the closing ceremony.

"Survival", a single released by the English band Muse, will be the official song of the Olympics.[393] It will be broadcast when the athletes enter the stadium and in the period before medal ceremonies; international broadcasters will also be playing it while reporting on the Games.

The official mascots for the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games were unveiled on 19 May 2010 this marks the second time (after Vancouver) that both Olympic and Paralympic mascots were unveiled at the same time. Wenlock and Mandeville are animations depicting two drops of steel from a steelworks in Bolton. They are named Wenlock, after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock, which held a forerunner of the current Olympic Games, and Mandeville, after Stoke Mandeville, a village in Buckinghamshire where a forerunner to the Paralympic Games were first held. The writer Michael Morpurgo wrote the story concept to the mascots, and an animation was produced; it is intended that this will form part of an ongoing series concerning the mascots in the run-up to the Games in 2012. Two stories have been created about the mascots: Out Of A Rainbow, the story of how Wenlock and Mandeville came to be, and Adventures On A Rainbow, which features the children from Out Of A Rainbow meeting the mascots and trying out many different Olympic and Paralympic sports.

There have been two London 2012 logos: one for the bidding process created by Kino Design and a second as the brand for the Games themselves. The former is a ribbon with blue, yellow, black, green and red stripes winding through the text "LONDON 2012," making the shape of the River Thames in East London. The latter, designed by Wolff Olins, was unveiled on 4 June 2007 and cost £400,000. This new logo is a representation of the number 2012, with the Olympic Rings embedded within the zero.

The first Summer Olympic Games’ opening ceremony was held in 1896 on April 6 in Athena in front of 80 thousand spectators.

The first parade of the athletes in the opening ceremonies was organized in 1908 in London and 18 teams passed in parade with the national flags. The passing numbers of the countries were appointed by the English alphabet.

The modern Olympic Games were founded in 1894 when Pierre Fredy, Baron de Coubertin sought to promote international understanding through sporting competition. He based his Olympics on the Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games, which had been contested in Much Wenlock since 1850. The first edition of de Coubertin's games, held in Athens in 1896, attracted just 245 competitors, of whom more than 200 were Greek, and only 14 countries were represented. Nevertheless, no international events of this magnitude had been organized before. Female athletes were not allowed to compete, though one woman, Stamata Revithi, ran the marathon course on her own, saying "if the comittee doesn’t let me compete I will go after them regardless."

The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in Athens, Greece, from 6 to 15 April 1896. It was the first Olympic Games held in the Modern era. Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the Olympic Games, consequently Athens was perceived to be an appropriate choice to stage the inaugural modern Games. It was unanimously chosen as the host city during a congress organized by Pierre de Coubertin, a French pedagogue and historian, in Paris, on 23 June 1894. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was also established during this congress.

The Olympics have increased from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 male athletes to a 300-event sporting celebration with over 10,000 competitors from 205 nations. Organizers for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing expected approximately 10,500 athletes to take part in the 302 events on the program for the games.

The United States has hosted four Summer Olympics Games, more than any other nation. The United Kingdom will have hosted three Summer Olympics Games when they return to the British capital in 2012, all of them have been (and will be) in London, making it the first city to hold the Summer Olympic Games three times. Australia, France, Germany and Greece have all hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice. Other countries that have hosted the summer Olympics are Belgium, China, Canada, Finland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, the Soviet Union and Sweden. In the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro will host the first Summer Games in South America. Four cities have hosted two Summer Olympic Games: Los Angeles, London, Paris and Athens. Stockholm, Sweden, has hosted events at two Summer Olympic Games, having hosted the games in 1912 and the equestrian events at the 1956 Summer Olympics—which they are usually listed as jointly hosting. Events at the summer Olympics have also been held in Hong Kong and the Netherlands (both represented by their own NOCs), with the equestrian events at the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in Hong Kong and two sailing races at the 1920 Summer Olympics being held in the Netherlands.

Five countries - Greece, Great Britain, France, Switzerland and Australia - have been represented at all Summer Olympic Games. The only country to have won at least one gold medal at every Summer Olympic Games is Great Britain, ranging from one gold in 1904, 1952 and 1996 to fifty-six golds in 1908.

The major tournament of quadrennial will be held in UK’s capital and though it is the 30th tournament in number, it is being organized for the 27th time. Thus, three Olympic Games were not held during World War I and II.

London will host the Olympics for the third time. Previously London hosted the Olympics in 1908 and 1948. The great changes occurred in the Olympic Games, which returned to the island after 64 years. It is seen in number of types of sport, participating countries, sportsmen and set of medals.

About 10500 sportsmen from 204 countries will fight for 302 set of medals. The first Olympic Champion will be known on July 28. The medalists in 10m air-rifle shooting will be determined that day. The last set of medals will be presented to winners of women’s modern pentathlon.

Azerbaijan is also among 204 participating countries. 53 sportsmen (39 men, 14 women) represent our country in London. Our country participates in London Olympic Games for the fifth time as an independent country.

Our judoka Ilgar Mushkiyev (60kg) will compete first among our representatives. He can win the first medal for Azerbaijan. It is possible to predict that our sportsmen will win at least 9 medals. Four years ago our sportsmen won 7 medals in Beijing.

Azerbaijan is represented in 15 types of sport. Our main hopes are related to box, judo, weightlifting, taekwondo, rhythmic gymnastics, canoe and rowing. It was possible to win medals only from 3 of these 8 types of sport.

If our sportsmen win medals on other 7 types of sports, it will not be sensation. It is related most of all to shooting and equestrian. There is no serious hope to win medals on swimming, athletics, fencing, cycling.