EYES ON LONDON:
Track, and a big weekend begins

[August 03, 2012]  LONDON (AP) -- Around the 2012 Olympics and its host city with journalists from The Associated Press bringing the flavor and details of the games to you:

ATHLETICS BEGIN

It's track time.

The athletics events at the London Olympics finally kick off Friday after a week of sitting around and waiting. The showdown starts with the opening heats of the women's 100, where Carmelita Jeter represents America's best chance to break the Jamaica's Olympic rule.

A gold medal will be awarded in the shot put, and visitors will get their first look at the setup of 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium since the opening ceremony.

With no swimmers or gymnasts leaping forward to become the runaway stars of London, the door is open for the tracksters to seize it.

"I hope when the Olympics come around, and we're on the big stage, people will take an interest in a story and want to keep following," U.S. sprinter Allyson Felix says.

--Eddie Pells
http://twitter.com/epells

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'WAVE IF YOU'RE HAPPY'

At St. Pancras station in London, thousands are waiting to board the Javelin train to Olympic Park for the start of track events.

Those in line and the volunteers in charge seemed to take the delay in good spirits. "Wave if you're happy," one volunteer shouted at the waiting crowd.

Perhaps to some people's surprise, a couple of hundred hands shot up in the air.

--Simon Haydon
http://twitter.com/simonhaydon

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OLYMPICS JAM

On both ends of the Javelin train, a high-speed rail between Olympic Park and the middle of London, it's pretty much a madhouse Friday morning ahead of one of the London Olympics' busiest days.

Signs in front of Olympic Park say that "over 200,000 spectators and accredited workforce are expected each day." People are pouring off the trains at rush hour and the number of volunteers appears to have doubled. They're waving oversized pink foam fingers -- styled in the official color of the Olympics -- to point crowds in the right direction.

At the other end, at St. Pancras station in the center of London, lines of hundreds of people are amassing to head to the Olympics area.

--Noreen Gillespie
http://twitter.com/norgillespie

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ALL SQUEEZE FOR STRATFORD

It's fixing to be a busy day at the London Olympics on Friday. Spectators are packing trains toward Olympic Park as London's Olympic transport network faces its biggest hurdle.

With track and field kicking off in the main stadium, over 200,000 people are due to visit Olympic Park.

London Overground trains were packed tight by 7 a.m., and pivotal Kings Cross station saw its busiest morning of the games as passengers joined the high-speed Javelin train link. But there were cries of surprise when conductors announced the giant Westfield shopping mall at Stratford would close to anyone without a games ticket from 10:30 a.m.

That clearly caught off guard some passengers, who had planned a spot of Olympic shopping while soaking up the atmosphere outside the Park. Authorities suggest anyone planning a shopping marathon should head instead to London's West End, where crowds are thinner than usual as other tourists avoid the games peak.

--Mark Davies

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SAUDI FEMALE FIGHTER

She'll be competing in a modified hijab and against a much more experienced judo opponent.

But for 18-year-old Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani, one of the first two Saudi women ever to participate at the games for the ultraconservative Gulf Kingdom, perhaps an even larger fight is looming when she returns home.

Shahrkhani will take on Melissa Mojica, from Puerto Rico, in a preliminary match early Friday that is likely be over quickly.

The real drama will be after that, in reaction to what Shahrkhani will be wearing in front of male spectators.

A compromise was reached to have her wear a modified hijab while competing. But that has not been nearly enough to satisfy hard-liners who say she is dishonoring herself and her family by competing in front of men -- and in form-fitting clothes.

Still, she has many supporters at home.

"I am proud of her because she is confronting an entire system and society," said Aziza al-Yousif, a computer science lecturer at King Saud University. "She wants to play judo. Who decides who can judge her and what is in line with Islamic law or not? Let God judge her. We are humans. It's not our place to judge one another."

--Paul Haven
http://twitter.com/paulhaven

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MOVING ON

Ryan Lochte is moving on.

No, no, no ... not from swimming, but from Gainesville, Fla. The former Florida Gator has decided it's time to move out of his college town.

"Being in a college town for so long, it does get old," Lochte said.

He's got tons of support in Gainesville -- coaching, nutritionist, strength coach and the like. But it's apparently not enough to keep him in "Gator Country."

"I'm getting older and I think it's time for me to move on," Lochte said, adding that he still wants to do some training in Gainesville, "but I definitely want to move somewhere else and probably start a new life."

Lochte is planning to move to California, probably the Los Angeles area. He needs to stay warm -- and needs to keep surfing, he said.

--Tim Reynolds
http://twitter.com/ByTimReynolds

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MOVING ON

Ryan Lochte is moving on.

No, no, no ... not from swimming, but from Gainesville, Fla. The former Florida Gator has decided it's time to move out of his college town.

"Being in a college town for so long, it does get old," Lochte said.

He's got tons of support in Gainesville -- coaching, nutritionist, strength coach and the like. But it's apparently not enough to keep him in "Gator Country."

"I'm getting older and I think it's time for me to move on," Lochte said. "I'm still going to a little training there, but I definitely want to move somewhere else and probably start a new life."

Lochte is planning to move to California, probably the Los Angeles area. He needs to stay warm -- and needs to keep surfing, he said.

--Tim Reynolds
http://twitter.com/ByTimReynolds

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FRENCH REDEMPTION

France may have lost out on the 2012 Olympics to Britain, but the country's top athletes are winning at the medal table.

Seven years after London beat out Paris for these summer games, France has surged to fourth in the medal count after Thursday's events. France has won six golds and 16 overall medals. Britain has five golds and 15 medals.

The French have used success in the pool as a springboard. Three of their six golds have come in swimming.

"We're very proud because these athletes have also sent the message that French sport is high-performing and that France knows how to win," said Christian Donze, technical director of France's swimming federation.

The momentum could continue on Friday when France's five-time world champion Teddy Riner is favored in judo's heavyweight class.

--Graham Dunbar
http://twitter.com/gdunbarap

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ADVERTISING WINDFALL

NBC's windfall on the Olympics is turning into a downfall for other TV networks.

On Thursday, CBS Corp. Chief Executive Les Moonves became the third major media company executive in three days to acknowledge that the London Olympics were sucking the oxygen out of the advertising market.

Executives at CBS, Time Warner Inc. and Discovery Communications Inc. all said this week that the so-called "scatter" market for last-minute ad buys was experiencing softness. They said advertisers were spending more of their money on commercials for the Olympics, which have been more popular than forecast.

Still, rivals expected the dollars to flow back to their networks after the Games are finished.

Moonves said the market will return to normal in September, when the fall TV season begins and CBS starts to benefit from higher commercial prices that it locked in during the bulk sales period known as the upfronts earlier this year.

"We're ready for the gun to go off in the middle of September," he said.

--Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles
https://twitter.com/rnakashi

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FAST TRACK

The Velodrome at the London Games is delivering on its promise to be one of the fastest cycling tracks in the world.

Records were set and broken over and over on the first day of action on Thursday. On Friday, British cyclists Jessica Varnish and Victoria Pendleton will be chasing gold. The team set a world record in the qualifying round on Thursday, but was eliminated from contention due to an illegal change.

The women will be part of the field for the keirin, a mass start event with a sprint finish.

--Dave Skretta
http://twitter.com/APdaveskretta

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QUICK, SAVVY MOVE

Ryan Lochte is sponsored by Gatorade, and he apparently takes that seriously.

So when he sat down at a news conference Thursday night after his competitions at the London Olympics were over, Lochte started by adjusting the dais a bit.

Lochte quickly moved a bottle of Coca-Cola under the table, then swept a nearby bottle of Powerade far enough away that it wouldn't be in any camera shots. Gatorade, see, is a PepsiCo product. Coca-Cola is an official Olympic sponsor.

--Tim Reynolds
http://twitter.com/ByTimReynolds

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SPOTLESS AMERICANS

The American women's soccer team won all three games in pool play for the first time in Olympic history. Now they move on to the elimination round brimming with confidence.

The United States starts with New Zealand on Friday.

"This is when the tournament starts," U.S. midfielder Lauren Cheney says. "It's the knockout stage. There's no mess-ups in this."

If the Americans win, they will play the Britain-Canada winner in the semifinals.

--Joseph White
http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP

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BYE-BYE, BRITS

The men's and women's beach volleyball hosts from Britain are out.

Steven Grotowski and partner John Garcia-Thompson went winless in their three pool-play matches without even winning a set. The women's pair of Shauna Mullin and Zara Dampney beat Canada before being eliminated in the lucky-loser round by Austria on Thursday night.

Still, the athletes know they've done wonders for their sport in London and beyond.

"It's great the reception the sport has had in the UK and how much people love it," Mullin said. "We'll look back at it and see how much we've done for beach volleyball in the UK."

Dampney believes there's now enough interest to host regular international volleyball events.

"I think the British public would love to have a stop on the world tour here every year," Dampney said. "The Olympics is like a springboard for bigger and better things."

--Janie McCauley
http://twitter.com/janiemccAP

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DJ CELEBRATION

American swimmer Tyler Clary won an Olympic gold medal in the 200-meter backstroke on Thursday night, and afterward, he was asked how he planned to celebrate.

His answer: He's going to work.

Well, for a few hours, anyway.

Clary is an accomplished DJ, and he'll be a headliner at a London club called Chinawhite on Sunday night.

"Just up the street," Clary said after winning his gold. "That's going to be a lot of fun. That's going to be part of the celebration."

Another part of the celebration will actually be a brief vacation to Paris. No work planned there, he said.

--Tim Reynolds
http://twitter.com/ByTimReynolds

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MAN'S BEST FRIEND

What does Ryan Lochte like to do when he's not in the pool?

These days, it's watching movies on his couch -- with his dog Carter.

"He likes action movies," Lochte said.

Carter, it turns out, is a large Doberman. "He's a big baby," Lochte said, taking questions a couple of hours after he had to settle for an Olympic silver behind Michael Phelps in the 200-meter individual medley. "But he thinks he's a lap dog. He's 92 pounds. I don't get it."

And will Lochte be bringing Carter any souvenirs back from London?

Lochte smiled: "Five medals."

--Maria Sanminiatelli
http://twitter.com/SanMin68

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NOTE -- "Eyes on London" shows you the Olympics through the eyes of Associated Press journalists across the 2012 Olympic city and around the world. Follow them on Twitter where available with the handles listed after each item.

[Associated Press]

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