LONDON -- As the Olympic torch made its way into London's famous Trafalgar Square, Ammar Masarani stood wrapped in the flag of the Syrian uprising against the murderous regime of President Bashar Assad among a crowd of about 50 other dissidents.

They had waited for almost two hours this moment to highlight the slaughter of more than 10,000 of their countrymen. As the torch went by, they waved their flags, but remained largely silent in order, Masarani said, "to stay within the rules." 

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"Most people don't know what's going on in Syria with the Assad regime, so we are out here to raise awareness," Masarani told NBCNews.com. "I'm from Homs, he [Assad] has destroyed most of my city. He's destroyed most of the cities, Homs, Daraa, Hama.  He destroyed them and now he's starting in Damascus and Aleppo."

Given the scale of the problems in Syria, Thursday night's flag-waving demonstration might be a small gesture. However, it is the kind of protest that the Olympic organizers seek to avoid, insisting firmly that sports and politics should not mix and that the high ideals of "Olympism" must not be sullied by partisan campaigns.

More coverage of the Syria conflict

But experts who spoke to NBCNews.com accused the International Olympic Committee of picking and choosing what to regard as political while spinning the "fairy tale" of neutrality, suggesting it was time for the movement to acknowledge reality.

The present IOC's badly handled refusal of the request for a minute's silence for the victims of the Munich massacre at Friday's Opening Ceremony is perhaps case in point. Since the 1972 Games, the Olympics has done little to formally commemorate the dead, and relatives and Israeli officials had hoped the 40th anniversary would provide an appropriate opportunity.

Instead, IOC President Jacques Rogge and several leading figures in the U.K. held a minute's silence in the Olympic Village on Monday at short notice and without publicizing what they were doing -- after what Rogge described as a "spontaneous suggestion" -- but that only seemed to add insult to injury.

Daniel Taub, Israel’s ambassador to the U.K., told NBCNews.com that the Munich massacre was "beyond politics." The Embassy was holding its own minute's silence Friday, after a last-ditch plea to Rogge by the widows of two of the hostages fell on deaf ears.

"We’re talking about the darkest moment of Olympic history," Taub said.

“An attack on the Olympic ideals of peace and harmony through friendship and solidarity really requires remembering publicly within the Olympic framework. I would say that’s not politics, it’s humanity. The fear is that a failure to do that becomes political," he said.

“I would say in a very real way the people calling for a remembrance are really standing up for the true ideals of the Olympic Games, not trying to betray them," he added.

Taub said Israelis were puzzled that “something that seems to be such a clear violation of Olympic ideals doesn’t seem to be deserving of commemoration.”

Ilana Romano, widow of Yossef Romano, an Olympic boxer killed in 1972, returned to Israel Thursday from England where she made a personal plea to the IOC to relent. She told NBCNews.com that she hoped spectators would stay silent and the media would turn off their microphones for a minute while Rogge speaks at the Opening Ceremony.

'Pandora's Box'
Jules Boykoff, a former U.S. soccer player and an associate professor in Pacific University’s department of politics and government, said the IOC should recognize they are involved in politics and consider setting up a committee or some other formal way of dealing with such issues.

Boykoff, who is in London researching a book about the Games, said this would open "a kind of Pandora’s Box in terms of the issues they might have to deal with,” but scorned the claim that the Olympics is apolitical.

“The idea that sports and politics don’t mix is a fairy tale that the IOC tells itself to help it sleep better," he said. “It’s obviously thrumming with politics at every level.”

He said an Olympic political commitee might get decisions wrong, but at least people would know “here’s where we [the IOC] are coming from."

More London 2012 coverage from NBCNews.com

There are suggestions that at least some political issues are decided in secret, for example when planning where to put different nations -- perhaps arch-rivals such as Israel and Iran -- in the Olympic Village. (On Monday, Iran announced that its athletes would compete against Israelis in London. The country faced criticism after some competitors withdrew from events against Israelis at the 2004 Athens Games and 2008 Beijing Games.)

"Politics is taken into account when choosing who goes where, but that's based on guidance at International Olympic Committee level, not by [organizers of] London 2012, and it's agreed by each country in advance -- they know who their neighbors are going to be," a senior official involved in operations told NBCNews.com.

"It's about making sure athletes are comfortable in their living space rather than which countries don't get on," the source said. "Even then, it's a not really an issue. You've got to remember that these guys compete alongside each other all the time and all over the world --they know each other, some of them are best man at the other's wedding and so on." 

However, London 2012 organizers LOCOG denied international diplomacy played any role in the allocation of areas in the athletes' village, saying in an emailed statement "political issues are not a factor."

The Olympic movement does sometimes make open forays outside the world of sport. The Olympic truce, for example, calls for fighting around the world to stop for the duration of the Games.

But, in case anyone was thinking this might offer hope for countries like Syria, Boykoff was scathing. This "really nice idea" was "sort of a farce," he said. "Battles are going to continue across the world, they are not going to stop for the games, as popular as it is."

Flag flaps
Apart from the flag of the Syrian opposition, other flags have been already been causing political controversy at London 2012.

The Games actually began Wednesday with several soccer matches, one involving the North Korean and Colombian women's teams.

North Korea came out to train in Glasgow's Hampden Park stadium, but then walked off the field and refused to return after the South Korean flag was mistakenly used by officials. The game eventually did take place about an hour later with the North Koreans winning 2-0.

On Friday, it emerged that Taiwan's flag had been removed from among a host of others on London's Regent Street over concerns that China would be offended. Taiwan, which China views as a breakaway province, uses the flag of the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee at the Games, after the IOC ruled it could not use its own flag in the early 1980s.

Fortress London: UK protects Olympics with biggest security plan since WWII

And a marathon runner from new nation South Sudan, Guor Marial, will compete under the Olympic flag, after he understandably turned down the chance to run for Sudan -- which fought a decades-long civil war with the South that ended in the latter's independence. He was unable to run for his own country because it has not yet become a member of the Olympic movement.

But apart from Marial, everyone else will be competing for their country and Alan Bairner, professor of sport and social theory at the U.K.'s Loughborough University and author of a book, "The Politics of the Olympics," said the Opening Ceremony would be "replete with the politics of nationalism."

This runs contrary to the initial desire of the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, for athletes to compete as individuals rather than in state teams to avoid overly nationalistic sentiment.

“They talk about the world coming together, but the world comes together with national flags and anthems," Bairner said. "Events at Hampden Park … clearly demonstrated the significance of flags and emblems at supposedly apolitical events –  particularly if the organizers don’t get it right."

Bairner said only flags of competing nations were allowed to be flown at Olympic events and questioned what would happen if the flag of Scotland – part of the United Kingdom – was flown or given to a successful Scottish athlete as they celebrate.

 Scotland has also been racked with concern over the entry of a Team Great Britain in the soccer event. Despite being one country, the U.K. has four international soccer teams -- England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- and other countries have questioned whether this is fair. The fear in Scotland particularly was that a Team GB would set a precedent that would lead to the demise of the Scottish national team.

Bairner, a Scot, said the idea was almost unthinkable. "I can't imagine life without Scottish teams in these competitions [the World Cup, European Championships etc]," he said. "For it just to become Team GB, I would lose interest and support Spain or Germany."

He suggested the loss of the Scottish soccer team would provide a "boost" for supporters of independence from the U.K. ahead of a referendum on the issue in 2014.

Millionaire medalists: Will London 2012 remain true to Olympic spirit?

Bairner said the IOC tended to pick and choose what they deemed to be political.

It was possible, he said, that the IOC thought a Munich commemoration at the Opening Ceremony would be viewed as “pro-Israel.”

But he suggested it was “just about remembering people who died at an Olympic Games,” and said he thought most people would be "comfortable" with the idea.

Bairner, who said his sympathies tended to be with the Palestinians, said it was difficult to see how anyone could “object too strongly because they would almost be condoning that kind of activity,” and suggest that Olympic athletes were “legitimate targets.”

British weather could impact Olympic records

The ad hoc approach to political issues has been going on for years.

A few months before the Beijing Games of 2008, Rogge declared firmly that it was a "sporting, not a political, association," as he dismissed the effect of the resignation of filmmaker Steven Spielberg as artistic consultant over China's support for Sudan amid the Darfur conflict.

And in 1936, Avery Brundage, then head of the American Olympic movement and later an IOC president, opposed a boycott of that year's Berlin Games in Nazi Germany for the same reason.

The IOC’s decision to go ahead with the 1936 Munich Games -- awarded before the Nazis came to power partly to help shore up Germany's ailing democracy -- had handed Adolf Hitler a "huge propaganda victory,” Bairner said.

“You compare that with 1968 when [athletes] Tommie Smith and John Carlos do the Black Power salute. They are punished by the IOC for bringing politics into sport," he said, in perhaps an indication of what might happen to any Syria athletes trying to draw attention to the ongoing bloodshed in their country.

The treatment of Smith and Carlos likely gives an indication of what might happen to any Syrian athletes who attempt to use the Games to protest the killings in their country.

“It seems they [the IOC] decide what is political at any given time … what they approve of and don't approve of. That’s when they become quite a slippery organization," Bairner said.

NBCNews.com submitted requests for comment from the IOC about the issues raised in this article on Wednesday and Thursday.

Media relations manager Sandrine Tonge said a response would be provided "as soon as we can."

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Updated at 10:05 a.m. ET: LONDON — On August 14, 1948, Ray Lumpp stood in London's Wembley Stadium. As "The Star-Spangled Banner" played and "Old Glory" fluttered in the breeze, an Olympic gold medal was placed round his neck.

"To be in the Olympics was a dream come true," Lumpp, 89, told NBCNews.com from his Long Island home. "To receive a gold medal … it still shines in my heart." 

In the aftermath of World War II, parts of London still lay in ruins, food was rationed and the "strictly amateur" athletes were put up in basic accommodation. But "The Austerity Games" remain a special event for people like Lumpp.

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In sharp contrast to 1948, the London 2012 Olympics has a total budget in excess of $17 billion, a sum greater than the GDP of many of the 200-plus competing nations. About 9 million tickets have been sold and a global TV audience of billions is expected to watch more than 10,000 athletes compete.

Amid the glorification of multi-millionaires competing in sports including basketball, tennis and soccer, the sea of corporate sponsorship and fortress-style security — has the Olympic spirit been forgotten? What would previous Olympians make of today’s event?

Would the Ancient Greeks — who staged the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. — give their blessing or call down the wrath of Zeus? And what would the founder of the modern Games, French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin, make of the demise of the amateur ethos?

Lumpp played in an era where, unlike today, amateurism was central to the Olympic ideal.

"Even if I just wanted to play professional basketball, I would have been removed from the American team — just by saying I wanted to be a pro, I would have been removed," Lumpp told NBCNews.com. "The Olympics was supposed to be for fun and games — no compensation."

"I was married with one child and one on the way. I was a gold medal Olympic champion, but I owed money," he said. "You couldn't have sponsors, you couldn't do this, you couldn't do that ... you have to live and you have to eat."

More London 2012 coverage from NBCNews.com

After Lumpp returned to the U.S., he signed a professional contract with the New York Knicks and was soon "out of hock."

'For the love of it'
While he said that the acceptance of professionals into the games was a good idea — meaning countries could send their best competitors and a level playing field for all — he added that "sometimes money is too important, you lose the ideals of the Games."

"The Games are about taking part, peace and understanding, and competing against one another, not fighting …  playing against each other for the love of it," he said.

"[In 1948] we had great admiration for the British people. Whatever they had, that was it … but whatever they had, they shared it and put on a great Games under the conditions,” he said.

Fortress London: UK protects Games with biggest security operation since WWII

Lumpp said the success of the 1948 Games – the first since Munich 1936 in Hitler’s Germany — had been vital.

"After that 12-year period when there were no Olympics, it was important, very important, that the next Games be a success because it would affect the future of the Games … because people might say 'it's not worth it,' and it could fade away,” he said.

The gap between Games was somewhat longer when Coubertin hit upon the idea of recreating the evemt.

The Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius had decreed in 393 A.D. that "pagan cults" such as the Olympic Games would no longer be permitted. Some 1,503 years later, the first modern event was held in Athens.

Modern Games born from war
Despite the emphasis on promoting global harmony, Coubertin’s big idea was born out of a war.

"It may be a little bit disappointing. You may think it's a product of peace," Dikaia Chatziefstathiou, an expert on the Olympics and an academic at Canterbury Christ Church University in England, told NBCNews.com.

France had not long been defeated in the 1870-1871 war against Prussia and there was concern that the country’s youth were "not very active," she said. "The French government worried that the army wasn't strong enough."

Coubertin, an expert on education, was brought in to shake things up and, on a fact-finding mission to England, he noted the emphasis on studying Ancient Greece and Rome at the country’s private schools, and was also impressed by the emphasis on sport and "muscular Christianity."

This, he thought, could be the answer to France’s diminished military might.

But the late 19^th century was also the so-called Age of Optimism when it was hoped that the world could put an end to war, disease and other great scourges. International movements such as the Scouts, the international Esperanto language, the YMCA and others sprang up "all about making society and the world a more peaceful place,” Chatziefstathiou said.

"He [Coubertin] came to the idea that actually sport can be used to have a peaceful celebration among the nations because he saw the power of sport,” Chatziefstathiou said. "He said 'Why not use sport and education to actually unite nations around the world?'"

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The idea caught the world’s imagination, but the first Olympiad in 1896 was a very different games to 2012 or even 1948.

There were no women. "He [Coubertin] really didn't want women to sweat. He didn't want women to have any physical exertion," Chatziefstathiou said, explaining this in terms of the social norms of the aristocracy of the time.

Also, most of the 1896 competitors were members of the upper classes and, if the right sort of person turned up, they just might find themselves allowed to take part.

George Stuart Robertson was one such athlete. He wrote an Ancient Greek ode that was recited at the end of the 1896 games and won a bronze medal in the doubles tennis. He also took part in the discus, which was perhaps a mistake, as he is still on record as achieving the worst-ever throw of about 27-and-a-half yards.

However -- in a sign of the Olympics' ability to break barriers — one of the heroes of 1896 was a Greek peasant called Spyros Louis, winner of the marathon.

"He became a big symbol of the Games … because without money, without preparation he came and ran in his traditional [Greek] clothing," Chatziefstathiou said.

While Coubertin subscribed to amateurism, she said she did not think he would not be appalled by the money in today’s Games. "If he saw that the movement wouldn't really survive without commercialism … I don't think he would be against commercialism with controls," she said.

Chatziefstathiou’s interest in the Games extends beyond the purely academic. She will be one of scores of dancers from all over the world in Friday's Opening Ceremony and was enthused by the "joy" among them at a practice held Monday.

Even Twitter keeps Opening Ceremony (mostly) a secret

"If Coubertin came back [today], he would absolutely love the spirit of the people, and how many people of all ages, all nationalities are all there and enjoying it, and really actually believing it [the Olympic spirit]," she said.

Concerns over corruption, such as betting scandals, might be a worry, but Coubertin would be proud of how "his baby" had grown, she said.

"He wouldn't say 'Oh my God, this is a monstrosity' because he was so keen to keep the movement going," Chatziefstathiou said. "I think he would be absolutely over the moon."

The participation of women, however, might prove too big a step for a man of his background, she suggested. "I don't think he would like this. He would be able to adapt to many things, but this is a spectacle I don't think he would be keen to see."

Ancient Games: Naked and men-only
Most Ancient Greeks were similarly against women at the Olympic Games, and to a much greater degree. With the exception of the priestess of Demeter, who oversaw events for religious reasons, any woman found watching the events faced being killed.

However, at least one female spectator is said to have survived the experience.

Kallipateira, the mother of a boxer, sneaked in dressed as a man to watch her son compete, Armand D’Angour, a fellow and tutor in classics at Jesus College, Oxford University, told NBCNews.com.

"Then when her son wins, she jumps up with delight and gives herself away as a woman," he said.

Check out our 'TODAY in London' blog

Summoned by the judges, she told them how sport was part of her and her family's life, saying "this is who I am." And the judges, D’Angour said, decided to let her off.

The idea of female athletes would have been shocking for most Greeks, "apart from one city state, which was Sparta," he said.

In Sparta, women had a degree of equality and were known to be "very sporty."

"Spartan women were considered to be women with six-packs —  strong, not necessarily beautiful, and quite scary," D’Angour said.

However, all Ancient Greeks would have been more in tune with the today’s Olympics when it came to ideas about money.

D’Angour said athletes were sponsored by their cities and spent years in training.

"And of course if they won, they were feted, celebrated and odes were written for them — an expensive business. They would be fed at public expense for the remainder of their lives. There was a lot of money in it," he added.

Flame 'nothing to do with Ancient Greece'
The amateur ideal or so-called “Corinthian spirit” was “a bit of an invention really,” D’Angour said.

Other modern inventions include the Olympic flame — "that’s nothing to do with Ancient Greece, it comes from the idea of the eternal flame in Rome" — and the Olympic rings, he said.

D’Angour, author of Ancient Greek odes to the Athens and London Olympics, said Ancient Greeks would be shocked by "the completely irreligious" nature of the modern games.

"Zeus, the head of their gods, was very much in the center of the games," he said. A central message was "as great as human beings strive to be, they can never be as great as the gods."

And they might also be disappointed that the athletes were wearing any clothes.

"They competed naked — you’d see a lot of dangly bits. We don’t really know the origins of that. One story says a competitor in a running race tripped over something he was wearing, and after that they decided everyone should go naked," D’Angour said.

"I think it was to do with a celebration of the body beautiful. They were keen on the beauty of the bodies, shining, oiled bodies with fantastic musculature and beautiful balance," he said.

Get the latest results from NBCOlympics.com

But overall D'Angour said he thought that any Ancient Greeks transported to London 2012 be pleasantly surprised.

"The ambition to do well, the striving to achieve excellence in a sport … Let’s say they got over the fact they were living in a different century, I think they would find it fairly familiar and would be excited," he said.

They might be a little bemused by events such as synchronized swimming, he said, but the 100 meters and the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, would likely be popular. But even Bolt would be measured against ancient heroes, whose true speed can only be guessed at.

"I think what they would feel is 'this chap [Bolt] is a bloody fast runner' but – because they didn’t have records —  they would say 'Diagoras,' —  who ran in 426 BC — 'was pretty good too, I can tell you,'" D’Angour said.

And there might be a few requests for one ancient favorite, chariot racing, to be restored.

"That would be fantastic, wouldn’t it?" D’Angour said. "Can you imagine? It'd be like Ben Hur all over again."

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Updated at 9:09 a.m. ET: LONDON -- The biggest peacetime security operation in Britain’s history is under way – an $877-million civilian and military plan to protect athletes and visitors from threats ranging from suicide bombers to organized criminals. But it has also turned some London streets into military zones and Olympic venues into fortresses.

A simple glance at the main Olympic Park in East London confirms this will be the most security-conscious Games in history: More than 11 miles of razor-wire-topped electric fencing separates the site from its surroundings, every entrance is guarded by soldiers and the surrounding streets and shopping malls are patrolled by police carrying 9mm semi-automatic weapons – an unusual sight in Britain, where armed patrols are normally found only at airports.

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On the busiest days, 12,500 police officers will be on duty while 12,200 soldiers will carry out the venue security searches assisted by at least 7,000 contracted civilian security workers. A further 5,500 troops will be involved in military operations outside the site.

“I think the British have prepared extremely well and in my judgment this is as secure an Olympics preparation as I have ever seen,” said NBC counter-terrorism expert Michael Leiter.

Going for gold: British workers cash in on Olympics with strike threats

Every vehicle entering the site is scanned and searched, inside and out, by military teams in ‘sterile’ zones away from key buildings. The maximum-security athletes’ village is ringed by even more metal fences. It’s enough to prompt some to compare the Olympic Park to a prison.

But it’s the less obvious measures that have brought the greatest controversy to the Games. At least 1,850 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras feed pictures back across London to the joint police and government control center (NOCC) at New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the city’s Metropolitan Police, according to a data access request by civil liberties campaign group, Big Brother Watch. (Olympic organizers refused to say on Tuesday how many cameras are in use.)

The extent of the surveillance might surprise visitors from the United States, but is a common feature of life in Britain - the world’s biggest user of such technology with 4.2 million CCTV cameras in use by public agencies alone. 

As well as being fed through facial-recognition and license-place recognition software, images will be available to hundreds of CIA, FBI and TSA officials flying into Britain for the Games, as well as to officers from Interpol.

Striking a balance between public protection and personal freedoms is increasingly difficult for authorities.

 “Of course the Olympics need to be secure but there is a danger of losing sight of all proportion,” Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, told NBCNews.com. "It would be a sad indictment of modern Britain if the lasting legacy of the Games is an unwarranted security and surveillance infrastructure.”

Drones
However, Chris Allison, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, on Tuesday insisted his force would be using “a light touch” in policing the Games – a promise borne out by armed officers posing for tourist pictures. (Officers have also been told not to run in response to emergency calls, to prevent panic among crowds.)

More London 2012 coverage from NBCNews.com

The most contentious measure is the installation of six temporary high-velocity ground-to-air missile sites around East London, including two atop residential apartment blocks in Bow and Waltham Forest. Residents of the latter building lost a legal bid to have the weaponry moved.

Unmanned drones – smaller, unarmed versions of those used by the U.S. to target Islamist militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan - will float above the venues, monitored by U.K. military commanders.

Helicopter-mounted cameras capable of identifying the color of a suspect's shoelaces on the ground from almost a mile away will also be utilized. The devices feature powerful zoom functions which can even allow airborne officers to see the color of a suspect's eyes on the ground.

For the first time since World War II, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has taken charge of London airspace, working alongside civilian air traffic controllers in Swanick, near Southampton, to ensure only aircraft with pre-approved flight plans are in the busy skies surrounding the capital’s key airports.

For the duration of the games, all airspace around the city is either restricted to pre-authorized private or commercial flight – or prohibited altogether.

33 Team USA athletes to watch in London

Four Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets on standby are prepared to intercept aircraft flouting the restrictions and use "lethal force" if necessary. Paul Haskins, general manager of London Terminal Control at air traffic control agency, NATS, told NBC News: “If an aircraft has not spoken to an air traffic controller for a long time and its coming a concern to ourselves and the military, various different methods will be used to communicate with that aircraft but if all those fail than an intercept will be provided by the military to ascertain exactly what is going on, on that flight.”

Britain's biggest warship, HMS Ocean, is also stationed on the River Thames, while Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel Mounts Bay will be stationed near Weymouth, Dorset, where Olympic sailing events are taking place. Six helicopters - three Royal Navy Sea Kings and three RAF Pumas – complete the armory.

Despite the firepower, military officials want to downplay their presence. "We want the focus to be on [Jamaican sprinter] Usain Bolt this summer and not us," Air Vice-Marshal Stuart Atha told reporters in May.

For 1st time, women from every nation ready to rock the Olympics

Security has been a fundamental issue for the London Games, literally from day one: the morning after the U.K. capital was named host city in 2005, a co-ordinated attack on buses and underground trains killed dozens in an atrocity referred to in Britain as 7/7.

Britain was America's closest ally in Afghanistan and Iraq, making it a prime target of Islamist terror groups. And dozens of recent terror plots, including the 2006 plot to blow up nearly a dozen trans-Atlantic airliners, have been hatched within Britain's sizeable Muslim population. 

'Tumultuous world'
Although other Olympics have taken place since 9/11 - Salt Lake City, Athens, Turin, Beijing and Vancouver - London offers a different breed of security challenge. 

This family's Olympic odyssey includes bikes, a satellite dish -- and reindeer pelts

Many events are taking place at venues as far away as Scotland, creating a further security risk – that terrorists could avoid locked-down London and choose less high-profile targets instead.

"I'm confident that there is more than adequate security here for these games," Louis Susman, the U.S. ambassador to the U.K., told The Associated Press. "That said, we live in a tumultuous world, whether that be in New York or London." 

Britain’s terror level is currently labeled ‘Substantial’ - a notch below ‘Severe’, which has been the level for much of the past decade. A ‘Substantial’ threat level indicates an attack is a strong possibility. 

Despite the U.S.-U.K. collaboration, there will still be differences in how the London Olympics is policed. Most of the security personnel will be unarmed - a striking difference to operations in the United States. 

Adding to security issues, leaders from around the world will be in town. The American delegation will be led by first lady Michelle Obama while President Barack Obama focuses on his re-election campaign. 

London Olympics: 8,000-mile torch relay around UK

So far, the biggest wobble came earlier this month when private security contractor, G4S, admitted it would not be able to meet its target to supply the required number of civilian security workers – mostly because of the time taken to complete vetting checks of employment history and possible criminal backgrounds.

That story, first reported by NBC News’ Keir Simmons, prompted the government to summon 3,500 troops above the original 7,500 estimate. On Tuesday, the government announced a further 1,200 would be called in to guard against any possible security staff shortfall.  The extra troops, many of them called back from leave after serving in Afghanistan, are being housed in two temporary camps: One in a park near Hainault and another in Tobacco Dock, an empty commercial building in Wapping, near the Tower of London.

However, officials on both sides of the Atlantic remain confident. London's mayor, Boris Johnson, told Matt Lauer on TODAY on Wednesday: “The venues are as safe as we can make them. Politicians can never say the whole thing is 100 percent nailed down."

"The intelligence we’re getting is that the overall risk is being downgraded from severe to substantial, and the London Olympics will be as safe as any games has ever been,” he added.

"I've not heard any American who has said they were concerned about security here," said Susman, the ambassador. "London has made an effort to showcase London for the world and I think it's going to be terrific."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Updated at 11:10 a.m. ET: LONDON - Olympic athletes, including some from Team USA, had a bad start to the London Games Monday after bus drivers taking them to the competitors’ village in east London got lost.

Kerron Clement, US 400m hurdler and Beijing silver medallist, claimed he spent four hours on a bus after the driver got lost after collecting them from Heathrow airport.

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He posted on Twitter:  “Um, so we've been lost on the road for 4hrs. Not a good first impression London. Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee. Could we get to the Olympic Village please.”

Meanwhile, members of Australian contingent of 30 officials and medical staff had to use their iPhones to direct their bus driver after he also became lost.

One of the officials, Damian Kelly, told the Daily Telegraph: "It would have been a great tourist trip if that is what you are here for. “

He said the driver was unable to work the onboard GPS navigation system.

Follow the 8,000-mile torch relay around the UK

“One of the doctors on board got [the GPS system] working for him, but then the Olympic Village hadn't been loaded into the system and everyone was trying to find the name of the street that the village was in.

“In the end another physio got out his iPhone and gave directors to the bus driver via his phone."

They were among the first of more than 10,000 athletes and officials due to arrive in Britain this week. Monday was already expected to be the busiest day in the history of London's Heathrow airport, and it was the first major challenge for the road system as the first of several dedicated Olympics traffic lanes also came into operation.

Speaking about the lost buses, London Mayor Boris Johnson quipped: "Clearly they would have had even more of an opportunity to see even more of the city than they might otherwise have done."

Troops everywhere, long lines and moans: A very British Olympic Games

The Daily Telegraph reported that Hugh Robertson, Britain's sports and Olympics minister, apologized to those athletes caught up in the transport problems. He said: "If people have been on buses that have got lost then it is of course regrettable. I am extremely sorry, and clearly the drivers need to know where they are going."

The Games are due to begin in 11 days' time, on Friday, July 27.

More than 500 Heathrow and Locog volunteers, speaking more than 20 languages between them, were welcoming groups of Olympic athletes and officials from their planes at Heathrow.

Approximately 15 percent of baggage on peak days will be large pieces of sporting equipment such as canoes, pole vaults, bikes and javelins and around 1,000 guns and associated ammunition will be arriving with competitors over the coming days.

Read the full story at ITV News

Influx under way
Officials said 236,955 passengers (121,239 arrivals and 115,716 departures) were expected to pass through the airport Monday, compared to 190,000 on an average day. The largest number of arriving athletes is expected on July 24.

Approximately 15 percent of baggage on peak days will be large pieces of sporting equipment such as canoes, pole vaults, bikes and javelins and around 1,000 guns and associated ammunition will be arriving with competitors over the coming days.

Dean Brenner, director of the U.S. Olympic sailing team, earlier told ITV News at Heathrow: "We're feeling great, it's great to be in London.

"Obviously we've been working a while for this and now it's time for the big test and we are looking forward to getting to [the sailing team base at] Weymouth for a couple more week of training and getting on with the Games."

The London 2012 Athletes' Village also officially opens Monday with British athletes competing in diving, equestrian, soccer, shooting and swimming expected to be the first to enter.

ITV News is the UK partner of NBC News.

More London 2012 coverage:

• Disabled visitors face high hurdles to London Olympics
• Terror suspect's eye color? Flying cameras to spy during Games
• Londoners express hopes, frustrations as Olympics come to town
• Flagship McDonalds in Olympic Park becomes super-sized
• Olympic torchbearers race to cash in
• Will world's most expensive cable car be ready for Olympics?
• Now towering over London: 'The Godzilla of public art'
• Venues for the London 2012 Olympic Games
• Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy camp faces ax
• VIDEO: Olympic torchbearer proposes mid-relay
• Brits revel in gloom ahead of Games, but don't believe the gripe
• Olympic housing crunch: Landlords evict tenants to gouge tourists
• At London Olympics, dogs have sniffed out key anti-terror role
• Slideshow: When the Olympics is your neighbor
• Go behind the scenes with our 'TODAY in London' blog
  

 

 

LONDON — The military has been drafted to plug a security gap, the road surface along a key arrival route is cracking up and London Heathrow International Airport is expecting long lines. Only 14 days before the Olympics, are the wheels coming off London's Games planning or are Britons just finding excuses to grumble?

It has not been an encouraging week for organizers, or for London's 7.5 million residents. A crowd control rehearsal at main stations during Tuesday's morning commute caused frayed tempers and led to predictions that the city's creaking transport infrastructure may not be able to cope.

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Then NBC News broke the news on Wednesday that Britain's military will have to come up with 3,500 bodies to fill a shortfall in security personnel because private contractor G4S admitted it might not meet its agreed targets to supply workers.

Competing athletes, due to arrive from all corners of the world on Monday, were warned on Thursday that the M4 motorway link that was supposed to whisk them from Heathrow to their hotels and training bases may still be closed after cracks were discovered in a concrete viaduct. Meanwhile, delays at airport immigration recently were so bad that passengers began slow-clapping in protest.

And anyone at the Olympic site trying to cheer themselves up with a snack might also be disappointed. Under the multi-million dollar International Olympic Committee sponsorship deals, chips — as fries are known in the U.K. — are banned at the site unless they come from McDonald's, or if they are served as part of a traditional British fish and chips meal. A sign in the workers' cafeteria, posted on Twitter, struck a note of disappointment.

The military, currently undergoing a painful round of layoffs and cost-cutting, is far from pleased at mopping up the failings of a private contractor. Retired Colonel Richard Kemp, a former UK commander in Afghanistan, told the BBC on Thursday:

“Many of the soldiers that are coming — this extra 3,500 — I understand are soldiers who have just returned from Afghanistan. As always when you give any part of the armed forces a task they will do it extremely well, extremely professionally and with a smile on their face… but we shouldn't forget also that many of these soldiers are people who have been told in the last few days that they are going to be made redundant, that their regiments are being scrapped and they are under great pressure already. The wider morale in the armed forces now is very fragile and this will simply add to that fragility.”

Britain's Home Secretary, Theresa May, has offered free Olympic tickets to the extra soldiers to compensate them for having their leave canceled. 

Summoned to parliament on Thursday to explain the security shortfall, May denied claims by opposition lawmakers that Games preparations were "a shambles." She also dismissed concerns that the presence of up to 11,000 soldiers at Games venues — more than the 9,500 troops Britain currently has deployed in Afghanistan — would make visitors feel uncomfortable.

London Mayor Boris Johnson went a step farther, saying the military presence "adds to the tone of the occasion."

But the tone of the Games is precisely what is raising concern in some quarters. Early evidence from the main Olympic Park suggests the often-officious character of British event organization could be a serious irritant: Identity passes and access credentials are zealously scrutinized at every turn by guards brandishing official buttons and lanyards, but maps or signs have yet to be installed at the vast site.

Brits revel in gloom ahead of London Olympics, but don't believe the gripe

Many local parks, stations and access roads have already been shut down two weeks before the Games, effectively extending the inconveniences associated with airports to the entire city. Conservative commentator Charles Moore, writing in a special issue of The Spectator magazine, took particular exception to the mantra of officialdom, 'for security reasons,' calling it "the great tyrant's excuse of our times."

Strict enforcement of Olympic branding rules and sponsorship clauses has also come under criticism. Pierre Williams, spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses, castigated LOCOG (the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) for "petty officiousness" and for having been "absurdly over-protective" of its corporate sponsors, according to a report in the Financial Times. "In its almost paranoid attempts to protect the Olympic brand and its corporate sponsors, it has largely destroyed the goodwill that was there for the taking from businesses supplying the games," he said.

Onlookers taking pictures at the 'O2' music arena have reported being hassled by security staff because the site will shortly become an Olympic venue for basketball and thus off-limits for photography. (It can't be called the 'O2' either, because it is named after a non-Olympic commercial sponsor: It will be known during the games as 'North Greenwich Arena 1'.)

However, these alone are not indications that the Olympics will be a disaster. It seems unlikely that a city that has learned to live with crush-loaded Tube trains and has spent decades under the threat of terror — first from the IRA, which used explosives and bomb warnings to disrupt London's public transport for a generation, and then from Islamic militants — could not cope with two weeks of similar inconvenience.

Complaints are to be expected, especially in a country where moaning might be regarded as an Olympic event in its own right.

"I hope, and expect, it will be a success," said author and transport expert Christian Wolmar. "I am optimistic that the transport system will cope just fine. If anything goes wrong at the Olympics it will be overzealous and dumb security, not public transport."

There has been one small victory for the common man: McDonald's on Thursday said it had relaxed its position on French fries in a deal with LOCOG that allows workers to be served individual portions of fries at other restaurants on the main Games site.

But perhaps the most encouraging sign came on Thursday afternoon, when transit authority Transport for London asked for volunteers to rehearse waiting in line and "simulate the unloading of a crush Central line car" to test crowd control measures. "How much fun does that sound like to you?" asked David Hill of The Guardian. 

You may think the last thing the British needed to practice was waiting in line or putting up with crowded trains, but it seems no detail is being left to chance at the 2012 Olympics. There was no shortage of unpaid volunteers, and the event was reportedly a success. Maybe things will run just fine after all.

More London 2012 coverage:

• Disabled visitors face high hurdles to London Olympics
• Terror suspect's eye color? Flying cameras to spy during Games
• Londoners express hopes, frustrations as Olympics come to town
• Flagship McDonalds in Olympic Park becomes super-sized
• Olympic torchbearers race to cash in
• Will world's most expensive cable car be ready for Olympics?
• Now towering over London: 'The Godzilla of public art'
• Venues for the London 2012 Olympic Games
• Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy camp faces ax
• VIDEO: Olympic torchbearer proposes mid-relay
• Brits revel in gloom ahead of Games, but don't believe the gripe
• Olympic housing crunch: Landlords evict tenants to gouge tourists
• At London Olympics, dogs have sniffed out key anti-terror role
• Slideshow: When the Olympics is your neighbor
• Go behind the scenes with our 'TODAY in London' blog
  

 

 

Updated at 12:11 p.m. ET on July 26: LONDON - The Olympic flame has been carried past famous British landmarks and tourist spots including Queen Elizabeth II's home at Windsor Castle, the Scottish Highlands and the castle in north-east England where the "Harry Potter" movies were filmed.

The torch is nearing the end of a winding, U.K.-wide 8,000-mile itinerary that culminates in its arrival at the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London, on July 27 for the ceremony at which the queen will declare the Games open.

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You can watch NBC video of its progress on the interactive map above. It has already been carried from Land’s End, at the far south-western tip of England, to Wales, Northern Ireland and across to Scotland.

More Olympic coverage from NBC News

It even briefly crossed the border into the Republic of Ireland on its route, which was designed to take it within an hour's journey of 95 percent of Britain's population.

However, some didn’t have to travel anywhere to see it: The queen carried an unopened umbrella as rain-sodden runner Gina Macgregor, 74, took the torch directly to her front door at Windsor Castle, in Berkshire on Day 53 of the relay.

Earlier that day, it was held aloft by Roger Bannister, the first runner to smash the four-minute mile in 1954. Bannister, 83, walked 30 yards along the same track in Oxford where he ran the mile in three minutes, 59.4 seconds on May 6, 1954.

Read more coverage of the Olympic torch relay at ITV News

The torch has seen its fair share of human drama, including a torchbearer in Yorkshire who paused to propose to his girlfriend.

And in emotional scenes last month, Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson -- the most seriously wounded British soldier to survive the war in Afghanistan -- was cheered and applauded by crowds as he bravely carried the flame 300 meters despite his crippling injuries.

American stuntman Nick Macomber carried the torch in a special hands-free carrier while using his free hands to control a jet pack on his back when the relay passed Britain’s National Space Centre in Leicester, central England.

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• UK military asked to cover 3,500 Olympic security worker shortfall
• Olympics hurdle: US athletes' bus driver gets lost in London
• Inside Olympic Village: World's top athletes share college dorm-style rooms
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• Terror suspect's eye color? Flying cameras to spy during Games
• Gigantic welcome for London Olympic attendees
• Venues for the London 2012 Olympic Games
• Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy camp faces ax
• VIDEO: Olympic torchbearer proposes mid-relay
• Brits revel in gloom ahead of Games, but don't believe the gripe
• Olympic housing crunch: Landlords evict tenants to gouge tourists
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• Go behind the scenes with our 'TODAY in London' blog
  

 

Five giant rings were lowered off London’s Tower Bridge over the River Thames Wednesday, bringing the famous Olympic symbol to one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks to mark exactly a month to go to the start of the 2012 games.

The rings - 82 feet wide and 37 feet tall - are part of efforts to bedeck the city in Olympic banners ahead of the competition, which starts on July 27 and ends on August 12.

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Read more about the Olympic preparations 

The rings weigh three tons and cost more than $300,000 to produce, but have a highly symbolic presence on the bridge, which sits opposite the Tower of London and acts as a gateway for river traffic to the city center.

London Mayor Boris Johnson promised the city will “cope very well” during the games.

Speaking on a boat on the river, he said: "I'm convinced that we have done everything that we can. The venues are ready, they are under budget, the Park is looking fantastic already, the policing situation is great, you've got all the security in place, the transport network has had masses of investment and I know that it's going to cope very well."

ITV News is the UK partner of NBC News

More London 2012 coverage:

• Disabled visitors face high hurdles to London Olympics
• Terror suspect's eye color? Flying cameras to spy during Games
• Londoners express hopes, frustrations as Olympics come to town
• Flagship McDonalds in Olympic Park becomes super-sized
• Olympic torchbearers race to cash in
• Will world's most expensive cable car be ready for Olympics?
• Now towering over London: 'The Godzilla of public art'
• Venues for the London 2012 Olympic Games
• Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy camp faces ax
• VIDEO: Olympic torchbearer proposes mid-relay
• Brits revel in gloom ahead of Games, but don't believe the gripe
• Olympic housing crunch: Landlords evict tenants to gouge tourists
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• Slideshow: When the Olympics is your neighbor
• Go behind the scenes with our 'TODAY in London' blog
  

 

 

Thousands of London bus drivers went on strike Friday, demanding a bonus of $780 for working during next month’s Olympic games.

The public transit authority, Transport for London, said two-thirds of the capital’s 8,000 red buses were off the road on Friday due to the action.

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With just over a month to go before millions of athletes and visitors arrive for the games, union leaders have issued a string of demand for extra payments.

Underground train drivers have already secured a bonus of up to $1,326 – in addition to overtime payments – while workers in the Docklands Light Railway system near the games site have negotiated a payment of up to $1,482.

“Transport unions have the Mayor, ministers and the Games organizers over a barrel,” Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics, wrote in the Evening Standard newspaper. “No Olympics in history have been as dependent on public transport as London 2012. Indeed, a vow to get spectators to and from events by trains, Tubes and buses was a key element in the bid.”

Read more at ITV News

Mayor Boris Johnson has said those who strike will not be eligible for an Olympics bonus.

He said the strike was "extremely frustrating" and added: "I can only conclude that this strike is being driven by hardline trades union militancy and a desire to have a strike for political purposes."

In a bid to avert the strike, Johnson last week offered a deal with a collective $12.9 million but the union, Unite, is still seeking payments totaling $32.7 million.

It wants every bus driver to be paid a larger bonus, even if they don't drive routes affected by the Olympics, including anyone off sick or unavailabe to work.

Some routes were running on Friday after their private operators secured a court injunction to prevent workers joining the strike.

ITV News is the UK partner of NBC News. Alastair Jamieson, msnbc.com, contributed to this report.

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• Disabled visitors face high hurdles to London Olympics
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• Londoners express hopes, frustrations as Olympics come to town
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• Will world's most expensive cable car be ready for Olympics?
• Now towering over London: 'The Godzilla of public art'
• Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy camp faces ax
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• Go behind the scenes with our 'TODAY in London' blog
  

LONDON - The Olympic Stadium will be transformed into a British countryside meadow featuring real animals and grass during the opening ceremony, organizers said Tuesday.

With only 45 days before the spectacular show, film director and event producer Danny Boyle unveiled his ‘green and pleasant' vision that will open the games to an estimated worldwide television audience of over one billion.

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More than 10,000 volunteers wearing 23,000 costumes will take part.

The ceremony is titled 'Isles of Wonder' and is said to be inspired by Shakespeare's play, The Tempest.

Read more on this story from ITV News

It will be opened with the ringing of the largest harmonically-tuned bell in the world, produced by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in east London. The bell will be inscribed with the 'Isles of Wonder' speech performed by Caliban in Shakespeare's play:

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again

– 'ISLE OF WONDER' ACT 3, SCENE 2, THE TEMPEST, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The whole of the field of play in the stadium will be transformed into the rolling British countryside. Each of the four nations will be represented by their national flower: the rose of England, the thistle of Scotland, the daffodil of Wales and the flax from Northern Ireland.

Real farmyard animals will graze on the set: 12 horses, 3 cows, 2 goats, 10 chickens, 8 geese, 70 sheep and 3 sheepdogs.

Boyle explains: “The Ceremony is an attempt to capture a picture of ourselves as a nation, where we have come from and where we want to be. The best part of telling that story has been working with our 10,000 volunteers. I’ve been astounded by the selfless dedication of the volunteers, they are the purest embodiment of the Olympic spirit and represent the best of who we are as a nation.”

The show will feature 12,956 props - over 100 times more than a typical West End musical theater production – and a sound system weighing more than 50 tonnes.

ITV News is the UK partner of NBC News.

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• Disabled visitors face high hurdles to London Olympics
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• Londoners express hopes, frustrations as Olympics come to town
• Olympic torchbearers race to cash in
• Will world's most expensive cable car be ready for Olympics?
• Now towering over London: 'The Godzilla of public art'
• Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy camp faces ax
• Brits revel in gloom ahead of Games, but don't believe the gripe
• Olympic housing crunch: Landlords evict tenants to gouge tourists
• At London Olympics, dogs have sniffed out key anti-terror role
• Go behind the scenes with our 'TODAY in London' blog

 

The world's most expensive cable car is undergoing tests in London – but authorities admit the project, which links two Olympic venues, may not open in time for this summer's Games.

The 1,000-yard gondola lift line crosses the River Thames in east London and is planned to be both a commuter route and a tourist attraction.

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It has been enthusiastically backed by London Mayor Boris Johnson, but opponents point out the scheme will use public money despite a huge $57 million sponsorship deal with Dubai-based Emirates Airlines which means the facility will be officially known as the Emirates Air Line.

PhotoBlog: London's new Thames cable car in place - but will it be ready for the Olympics?

It will cost up to $95 million in total, with around $20 million coming from local public funds.

Transit authority Transport for London (TfL), which will operate the cable car, will only say the project will be open "in the summer," raising the prospect that it will not be ready in time for the London 2012 Games in July. TfL insists the route was never part of the Olympic transport plan.

Two 300ft-high pillars will carry more than 30 gondolas across the river from the O2 – the Greenwich concert venue that will host events including the gymnastics and basketball finals – to the Docklands-based ExCel conference center which is being used for boxing, fencing, judo, taekwondo, table tennis, weightlifting and wrestling.

The cost of a journey on the Emirates Air Line has not yet been set, but TfL says it will be similar to the frequent Thames River Boat service whose fares are around $8. Passengers will be able to pay with Oyster cards, the pre-payment "smart card" used by millions of Londoners.

Although the cost will be significantly higher than the equivalent bus or subway journey, the views from the 10-person gondolas traveling 160 feet above the ground are undoubtedly more appealing. 

TfL says the system will move 2,000 passengers an hour -- the equivalent capacity of more than 30 buses.

More Olympic coverage from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Now towering over London's Olympic Park: 'Godzilla of public art'
• Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy camp faces ax
• Brits revel in gloom ahead of Games, but don't believe the gripe
• Olympic housing crunch: Landlords evict tenants to gouge tourists
• At London Olympics, dogs have sniffed out key anti-terror role
• Slideshow: When the Olympics is your neighbor
• Go behind the scenes with our TODAY in London blog
    

 

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Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

 

Australian Olympic shooting gold medalist Russell Mark is set to parade in a lime-green "mankini" made famous by the movie character "Borat" at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics as the penalty for losing a bet.

Mark, who won double trap gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games and silver in Sydney, pledged to wear the skimpy swimsuit worn by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in the 2006 film if Melbourne-based Carlton lost to St. Kilda in the Australian Football League.

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Carlton suffered a shock four-goal defeat in the match on Monday night and Mark owned up to making the bet on local radio.

"Oh, I must've been intoxicated. Carlton promise so much and just deliver so little. It kills me," the burly 48-year-old said on Tuesday.

"Anyway, a lot of people would think a mankini might look better than the uniform they've nominated for us, so I don't know if it's such a bad thing."

The one-piece swimsuit would certainly stand out among the other Australian athletes, who will be kitted out in stodgy green blazers and white slacks which fashion critics in Australia described as "retro".

An Australian Olympic Committee spokesman recommended Mark keep the mankini in the closet.

"Age is the problem here. Russell is no spring chicken, his days of being a model are long gone, and we don't think it would be a good look for the team to have Russell in a mankini," the spokesman told local media.

"Besides, this will be his sixth Olympics and he is a chance to be named as flag bearer. Imagine the flag bearer out in front of our team in a mankini. And a big, butch shooter at that.

"As we all know the London weather is fickle and we would not want him to catch cold."

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Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

LONDON -- An eviction notice has been served on dozens of Occupy protesters who have set up camp in a park next to Team USA's Olympic track and field training base.

About 50 demonstrators are occupying Mile End Park – two miles from the main London 2012 site and next door to a sports stadium where American athletes will prepare for events in July.

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The park is also visible from the priority traffic lanes that will be used to whisk VIPs and other participants from central London to the Olympic Village, which is located to the east of the U.K. capital.

The protesters say they are part of the anti-capitalist Occupy movement, which has seen sit-ins and clashes with police in cities including New York, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Oakland.

An Occupy London camp was forcibly removed from the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral by police at the end of February, resulting in 20 arrests.

Local authorities have now secured a court order to close down Occupy Mile End, which began five weeks ago and includes about a dozen tents, a campfire and makeshift toilet facilities.

Police evict Occupy London protesters from camp

Tower Hamlets Borough Council applied for the order following complaints from local residents. The manager of a nearby nature reserve also accused camp members of damaging important trees by taking branches for firewood, according to a report in the East London Advertiser newspaper.

One of the protesters, who gave his name as Jim L., told msnbc.com the group had agreed to leave the site voluntarily on Sunday.

"This is one of Britain's poorest boroughs and we don't want to take council resources away from things like schools and hospitals so we have agreed to vacate the site without costing the council a penny," he said.

Mark Taylor, spokesman for the Mile End Residents' Association, said locals were "looking forward" to a "constructive and companionable relationship with Team USA."

He said: "We are very pleased that the council has secured a possession order to reclaim the park for its intended purpose. It's very sad that trees had to be pulled down for firewood and children's activities disrupted before the council acted."

Council officials insisted that nobody from the United States Olympic Committee, Team USA or the London 2012 organizers had expressed concern about the Occupy protest on their doorstep.

A spokesman for the council told msnbc.com: "The USA track and field team will be training at Mile End Stadium during the Olympic Games. They have funded extensive improvements to the stadium, and will be providing a variety of community benefits including free coaching sessions and opportunities to watch the team training.

Olympic housing crunch: London landlords evict tenants to gouge tourists

"We are working with the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) on security issues, understandably these issues are sensitive and therefore we are not able to comment in detail, but we do not anticipate that these will impact on the local community."

The council said it would go to the High Court to have the protesters moved if they did not leave the site, which is owned by a private trust on behalf of the council for use as a public park.

Brits revel in gloom ahead of London Olympics, but don't believe the gripe

Jim L. said the Occupy camp would move to a new, unidentified, site on Sunday. He added that there was little chance of protests targeting the Olympic Games.

"It would be impossible because of the security, in my own view," he said. "We're not against the Olympics as everybody likes a bit of sport, but I believe it is just one big advertising event for the benefit of corporate sponsors."

At London Olympics, dogs have sniffed out a key anti-terror role

He said the camp location had been chosen to highlight the issue of poverty in Tower Hamlets and not because of the proximity to Team USA's stadium.

"There are huge problems here -- lack of affordable housing, unemployment and poverty," he said. "This is not so much a protest as a process, which is why we've come here – to listen to people and gather support. There isn’t much point in trying to occupy private land in order to disrupt the institutions of capitalism.”

American competitors at the Games will have several bases across London for different sports. Other sites include the University of East London campuses in Docklands and Stratford.

Langdon School, in the nearby Poplar area, will be home to the Canadian Olympic team.

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