By Standard Digital Reporter

The clock is ticking. It is just a day before London stages its third modern Olympics from July 27 to August 12, 2012.

The Olympic Village will provide a temporary home for around 17,000 athletes and officials, but once the Games have ended, the Village will provide a permanent legacy for the whole of London, creating a brand new residential quarter of the city, to be known as “East Village”.

Four billion people globally are expected to watch the opening ceremony on an array of different media with10, 490 participants from more than 200 countries of whom almost half are women.

The London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) has braced itself to create sporting legacies from this year’s Games. David Beckham has been honoured with a role in the opening ceremony due Friday.

As part of preparations, sex workers are being cleared from the streets around the stadium to make the area more respectable for the Games.

BBC reports that the London 2012 Stadium, with a capacity of 80,000 seats, cost £500m to construct and will host athletics as well as the opening and closing ceremonies.

The best seats cost £2,012 for the opening ceremony and £725 for the men's 100m final, but 90% of tickets sold have been for £100 or less, two-thirds under £50 and about 25% cost £20 or less including children.

During the event, most eyes will be on Jamaican Usain Bolt, who produced two of the most memorable performances of the 2008 Beijing Games.

Most will wait to see if he will retain the Olympic title given that there is new kid on the block - Michael Phelps.

Kenya’s David Rudisha is expected to break his own record. But on spot is the date between Kenyans and Ethiopians in their synonymous middle and long distance races. Forget not the impressive performances from sterling soccer, boxing, weight lifters, and swimming.

So far of London 2012 Olympics has had its share of controversy, the major one centred on security. It emerged that 3,500 extra servicemen in addition to the 7,500 already committed - were needed for venue security as contractor G4S did not have enough trained security staff.

Interesting is that the alcoholics are not left out. The average price of a pint of beer in a pub goes at £3.17.

The Olympics kicked off on Wednesday with six women’s football matches, starting with Great Britain v New Zealand at 4pm.

On Thursday, the football competition will continue with the first set of men's group games in Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester (Old Trafford), Coventry and Cardiff.

The opening ceremony dubbed as ‘Isles of Wonder’ is scheduled to begin on Friday at 21:00 BST inside the Olympic Stadium. Participants will be treated with artistic expression of the Artistic Director (Danny Boyle) and his team, and the culture of our Host City and the UK.

According to london2012.com, the Ceremony will kick off with the sound of the largest harmonically tuned bell in Europe, produced by the Whitechapel Foundry, and the Stadium will be transformed into the British countryside for opening scene ‘Green and Pleasant’, which includes real farmyard animals and a special sequence celebrating the best of British, featuring volunteer performers from the NHS.

On Monday, The Standard Sports Editor Omulo Okoth left for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Keep in touch with The Standard Digital news for Olympics reports from the English metropolis.