Hyde Park will host the start and the finish of the race with the 1,500m swim leg taking place in the Serpentine and 10km run being contained within or directly adjacent to the park, as has successfully been the case for the last two editions of the London leg of the ITU World Championship Series.

However, in a departure from the previous course, the 40km bike section at the Olympics will see competitors take in Constitution Hill, Hyde Park Corner, Wellington Arch, Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial. Organisers are keen to use the iconic locations as a backdrop to both represent the best the city has to offer as well as open up the event to as many spectators as possible.

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However, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) are understood to have a strong preference for the proposal that uses The Mall as its centrepiece.Running from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square and featuring Admiralty Arch, LOCOG believe the ceremonial route will provide the marathon with an iconic backdrop. Traditionally the event has finished at the Games' main stadium and the original plan plotted a path from Tower Bridge to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London.

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Berlusconi Helped London Win 2012 Olympics: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair credits Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi with helping London secure the 2012 Olympics. Blair also says in his new autobiography that he was dubious about bidding for the games, never thought London would win and feared being "humiliated" by losing to the French.

In his book "A Journey" released Wednesday, Blair gives his fullest account to date of his role in London's victory over Paris in the International Olympic Committee vote in Singapore in July 2005. After Moscow, New York and Madrid were eliminated in the first three rounds, London beat the French capital 54-50 in the final vote.

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From 1948 To 2012: London's Olympics In The Frame: They produced five short films looking at various aspects of Olympic and Paralympic life through the eyes of athletes past, present and future. The VAULT project is led by Tower Hamlets Council and aims to join together different sections of the community - including young people, the elderly and athletes of all ages. It has been funded by Tower Hamlets Council's 2012 Unit, the London Development Authority and Lee Valley Regional Park Authority.The film explores the use of modern technology in sport and compares the training routines of 1948 Olympic gymnast, George Weedon with that of aspiring 2012 athlete, Peter Bakare. George believes that too much emphasis is put on using fancy machines and athletes need to use more traditional methods of training.

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Pistorius is a double amputee after being born with a congenital condition without any fibulas. "It's something I've aspired to," he told BBC Radio Shropshire, during a recent visit to the county.

"In 2008 I missed out by just under a quarter of a second and this season I have gone quicker." Pistorius had attempted to make the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but the International Association of Athletics Federations deemed his blades provided an unfair advantage.

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Channel 4 is determined to make "household names" of Britain's Paralympians in the build-up to the London 2012 Games.

The new Paralympic broadcaster yesterday unveiled ambitious plans to raise the profile of the likes of Eleanor Simmonds, double gold medallist.

In Beijing at the age of 13, and David Roberts, who has won 11 Paralympic gold medal. The channel outbid the BBC, which has shown the Games since 1980, for.

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She's won 33 gold medals in fencing locally and regionally, yet this isn't a record that Ruth Ng feels she should be proud of. For her, it means only one thing - she isn't being challenged.

So the 24-year-old has set her sights on the London Olympics in 2012, where she hopes to break into the Top 10 with her fencing team.

She flubbed her chance at qualifying in 2008 as she was too anxious, and with two more Olympic Games to go before she reckons she'll be past her athletic peak, Ms Ng is working to seize the moment.

"The Olympics is a wonderful dream for any athlete. If you're anybody who wants to pursue sports, it doesn't matter whether you get there or not, that should be your ultimate dream," she says.

She trains for up to five hours every day while working full-time for the Singapore Sports Council (SSC), where she is serving out her bond as the council's first scholar. She also finds time to mentor and inspire younger fencers.

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Seven-time World Surfing Champion Layne Beachley was on Friday appointed as an Athlete Liaison Officer (ALO) for the London 2012 Australian Olympic Team. Beachley made her debut on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women's World Tour as a 16-year-old and became one of Australia's greatest athletes and the most successful female surfer of all time.

Her first world title came in 1998, and she would go on to win the next five years in a row.There are now four ALOs to accompany the Australian team to London in 2012, with Beachley joining basketball legend Andrew Gaze, former Wallabies captain John Eales and cricket captain Steve Waugh.

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Lord Coe and his fellow London organisers will use the occasion to push for volunteers to help at their Games, which are just under two years away. "It's a great nod to Sydney that Seb is coming to the anniversary dinner," said Australia's International Olympic Committee member Kevan Gosper.

"And it's even better that they are using the occasion to launch their own volunteer program." Jackie Brock-Doyle, the director of communications for the London Games, said that with two years to go, it was time for the London organisers to inspire volunteers, or "Games makers" as they will be called in 2012.

"We are encouraging everyone in the UK to get involved if they have the time and motivation," she said. "We thought it was perfect to use the 10th anniversary of the Sydney Games to help launch our push. "Everyone remembers what it was like in Sydney and how great the volunteers were."

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Cadbury is leveraging its sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympic games to launch a £50m marketing push – its biggest ever – that aims to get the nation playing games, but there won't be a chocolate wrapper in sight. Seven years ago when Cadbury last attempted such a major association with sport, the ill-fated Get Active! campaign.

That encouraged children to eat chocolate in order to collect and redeem vouchers for school sports equipment, the company came in for heavy criticism. Reverberations continued more than a year after the push was scrapped, with the then public health minister Melanie Johnson saying: "I hope we do not see similar initiatives again, frankly."

There was some surprise when the company chose to stick its neck out again with a £20m-plus sponsorship of London 2012, as the "official treat". Olympics chief Paul Deighton was forced to defend the sponsorship for an event associated with the battle against childhood obesity.

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