This week's UK news: 13 July 2012
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13 July 2012


Olympics organisers plan for rain

You may have heard that the UK has had dreadful weather so far this summer, and it has rained every day for the last six weeks (this is not normal summer weather here, we promise).

Now the Olympic organisers are placing orders for thousands of plastic rain capes to keep spectators dry, as some sports will be played in venues without roofs. Organisers are also making plans for how they would reschedule hockey and beach volleyball matches if there were violent storms.

They are checking how high the River Thames would have to rise before the rowing lake was affected, and how well the mountain biking and BMX biking courses would be affected by days of rain.


The other Olympics starts, too

Much Wenlock is a little town in the rural English county of Shropshire. It also has an important and little-known place in Olympic history.

In 1850 the town's doctor, William Penny Brooks, launched the Wenlock Olympic Games, inspired by the original Greek version. Competitors came from England and abroad to take part. Baron Pierre de Coubertin visited in 1890 and talked to Brookes about creating an international Olympic Games. The first modern Olympics took place in Athens six years later, and Coubertin said it would not have happened without Brookes.

The Much Wenlock Olympian Games has sports including cricket, fencing and gliding, but has abandoned some of the other games of its past including chasing a piglet and climbing a greasy pole.


UK sport wins some and loses some

Andy Murray won lots of support this week as the first man for over 70 years to get into the finals of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Unfortunately he was up against Roger Federer, who was determined to win the event himself for a seventh time.

One winner was a British charity called Oxfam. In 2003 a man bet GBP 1,520 that Federer would win Wimbledon seven times. When the man died, he left this bet to the charity which has now won more than GBP 100,000.

Now we are following the journey of cyclist Bradley Wiggins, who is hoping to be the first-ever British winner of the Tour de France. Wiggins has been in the lead all week, wearing the yellow jersey, and his team-mate Chris Froome is in second place.

Rolling Stones celebrate half a century

Fifty years ago a young band played their first show in the Marquee Club in London, following it up with their first hit record, Come On, a year later. That band was the Rolling Stones, who since then have sold around 200 million albums round the world.

The band started at around the same time as the Beatles and made the most of a "bad boy" image, with headlines like "Would You Let Your Daughter Marry A Rolling Stone?" Their hits have included (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash, and Brown Sugar.

Guitarist Keith Richards has said the band has been rehearsing, but would not say when they would play in public again.

 

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