Countdown clock freezes on 500-day milestone
Source: Agencies |
March 17, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
TIME stood still as London marked the 500-day Olympic countdown with an embarrassing malfunction.
The giant digital clock counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the Olympic opening ceremony on July 27, 2012, froze on Tuesday afternoon, just a day after its glitzy unveiling in the shadow of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square.
While the clock was restarted several hours later, it was a humbling setback for London organizers on a milestone date meant to showcase the city's Olympic readiness and know-how. There were also teething troubles on the day when 6.6 million tickets went on sale.
"Whilst the clock has stopped ... it does not give us additional time to stage the games," the London organizing committee said after the steel clock's big red numbers halted at 500 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes, 56 seconds. The clock, which measures 8.5 meters high and 5 meters long, had started ticking down after a ceremony on Monday evening in the popular central London square.
Omega, the Olympic sponsor which made the clock and is part of Swatch Group AG, blamed the stoppage on a "technical fault" but managed to fix it by early evening.
"It's one of those windups set to test us, but it's working again," said Sebastian Coe, head of the Olympic organizing committee.
The clock was cordoned off by white tape as three workers tried to fix the problem. At one point, the numbers changed and the clock showed 201 days to go, then 208. Eventually, the clock went blank.
As word spread, onlookers began to crowd around the faulty clock, staring and taking pictures. There were more people on the site on Tuesday than there were for Monday's unveiling attended by organizers, city officials and British athletes.
Earlier on Tuesday, a few hours into the online ticket launch, fans with Visa credit cards which expire before the end of August found they were unable to process their orders. Visa is an Olympic sponsor and the only card that can be used to purchase tickets.
Organizers were at least relieved the system had not crashed. They had braced for a crush of demand, even though the tickets are not being sold on a first-come, first-served basis. Customers can apply for tickets over a six-week period ending April 26.
The giant digital clock counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the Olympic opening ceremony on July 27, 2012, froze on Tuesday afternoon, just a day after its glitzy unveiling in the shadow of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square.
While the clock was restarted several hours later, it was a humbling setback for London organizers on a milestone date meant to showcase the city's Olympic readiness and know-how. There were also teething troubles on the day when 6.6 million tickets went on sale.
"Whilst the clock has stopped ... it does not give us additional time to stage the games," the London organizing committee said after the steel clock's big red numbers halted at 500 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes, 56 seconds. The clock, which measures 8.5 meters high and 5 meters long, had started ticking down after a ceremony on Monday evening in the popular central London square.
Omega, the Olympic sponsor which made the clock and is part of Swatch Group AG, blamed the stoppage on a "technical fault" but managed to fix it by early evening.
"It's one of those windups set to test us, but it's working again," said Sebastian Coe, head of the Olympic organizing committee.
The clock was cordoned off by white tape as three workers tried to fix the problem. At one point, the numbers changed and the clock showed 201 days to go, then 208. Eventually, the clock went blank.
As word spread, onlookers began to crowd around the faulty clock, staring and taking pictures. There were more people on the site on Tuesday than there were for Monday's unveiling attended by organizers, city officials and British athletes.
Earlier on Tuesday, a few hours into the online ticket launch, fans with Visa credit cards which expire before the end of August found they were unable to process their orders. Visa is an Olympic sponsor and the only card that can be used to purchase tickets.
Organizers were at least relieved the system had not crashed. They had braced for a crush of demand, even though the tickets are not being sold on a first-come, first-served basis. Customers can apply for tickets over a six-week period ending April 26.
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