LONDON -- "I love my country. I fought for it, and now it's time to win for it,” said U.S. Army Iraq war veteran Scott Winkler, who was paralyzed in 2003 while serving on a mission in Tikrit.

"When you raise your hand and you swear to your country, that is the chance you have to take. That's the biggest part of being a soldier," Winkler, now a shot putter on the U.S. Paralympic Track and Field Team, told NBC News.

Bound to a wheelchair for life, he battled depression and went through a divorce. While in recovery at the VA Augusta Spinal Cord Injury Unit in Georgia, it was a struggle to regain self-sufficiency.

"I said enough is enough. I don't want anyone taking care of me and dressing me, bathing me. ... I'm a soldier," Winkler, 39, said.

Resolute
Determined to find another way to serve his country, he dug into physical strength building and joined the Paralympic U.S. Track and Field circuit.

Within a year, Winkler, broke the world record in the Paralympic shot put. In 2007, he won gold in the shot put at the Para-Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with a toss of 10.53 meters (34 feet 6 inches).

Ex-Marine Angela Madsen on her journey from homelessness to Paralympics

Winkler then set his sights on the Beijing Paralympic Games, and in 2008, he made history as one of the first Iraq war veterans to ever compete in the Games.

"I started thinking to myself a little motto. If you believe you can achieve. And I kept saying to myself, 'I believe I can make the team.' And I achieved it and I made that team," he said.

'Meet the Superhumans': Paralympians burst onto world stage

After narrowly missing a medal in Beijing but finding further golden success at the 2011 Para-Pan-American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, he is going into London 2012 with his focus firmly on reaching the podium.

'I wouldn't change a thing'
Winkler is now happily remarried and devoted to helping others overcome their disabilities.

Full coverage in London 2012: Hosting the Games

He co-founded Champions Made From Adversity, a non-profit that provides sports and leisure activities for people with physical disabilities and their families.

Even if he had the chance to magically go back in time and reverse his paralysis, he said he would not do so.

"I'm happy the way I am. God put me this way for a reason – to spread the word that there is life after injury -- and I wouldn't change a thing," he said.

PhotoBlog: 2012 Paralympics kick off with the first day of action

Winkler takes the stage of one the world’s biggest sporting event on Saturday when the shot put competition begins.

Read Scott Winkler's profile in the London 2012 Paralympic site

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Jim Seida / NBC News

Metropolitan Police officers guard one of the entrances to London's Olympic Park on Monday. (Jim Seida / NBC News)

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.

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.

Jim Seida / NBC News

At least 1,850 security cameras keep watch on the Olympic Park.

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.”

Slideshow: Olympic organizers keep a close eye on safety

Ettore Ferrari / EPA

London puts in motion the largest peacetime security operation on British soil to ensure a seamless event.

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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.

Slideshow: Venues for 2012 London Olympic Games

Oda / Getty Images

From Wimbledon to Wembley Stadium to The Dome, a look at the venues for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

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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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Slideshow: When the Olympics is your neighbor

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A diverse community in East London will welcome the world to Britain for the 2012 Olympic Games. Meet residents and hear how they feel about having a huge, world stage in their backyard.

Launch slideshow

Luke Macgregor / Reuters

Soldiers man a security checkpoint at an entrance to the London 2012 Olympic Park at Stratford in London on July 12, 2012.

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.

@Shoutsatcows on Twitter

A sign in the London Olympic Park, posted to Twitter, explaining that French fries cannot be served -- except to those ordering traditional British fish and chips together.

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

The Spectator

The cover of the July 14 issue of weekly conservative magazine, The Spectator.

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.

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• Go behind the scenes with our 'TODAY in London' blog
  

LOCOG

Torchbearer John Bowman lights the cauldron with the Olympic Flame following the Torch Relay journey through Chelmsford, England on Friday.

CHELMSFORD, England -- By any measure, 2012 has been a year to remember for my hometown of Chelmsford, about thirty miles northeast of London.

First, the borough was rather unexpectedly granted city status as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations earlier this spring. I've always thought the U.S. has played fast and loose with the term 'city', appending it to all kinds of urban sprawl. But in England it's a much more serious matter; to be a city means gravitas, history and a definite sense of superiority over those places that, well, aren't.

Then just a few days later, as if to top the royal accolade, it was announced that Chelmsford would play host to the Olympic torch relay on its odyssey around Britain. And it wouldn't just have the torch parade through its streets – it would play overnight host to the sacred flame!

As we say about buses in England: You wait ages for one and then two come along together.

But was I the only resident to think our civic cup runneth over with good fortune?

For a while, I feared I was.

Taking the pulse of the community on a rain-soaked Friday on Chelmsford High Street – where the market stalls selling strawberries were mocked by the unseasonal weather – I found few shoppers willing to look on the bright side.

Peter Jeary / NBC News

Chelmsford, England, High Street on Friday.

"It's all overdone," one old-timer told me. "Not just the torch, the whole Olympics."

"Draw a circle around London and you'll find hundreds of places like Chelmsford," another said, "It's nothing special."

But it is – or at least it was.

Chelmsford proudly calls itself the Birthplace of Radio – in 1899 Guglielmo Marconi opened the world's first 'wireless' factory here. In 1920 the first entertainment radio program was broadcast from the company's New Street headquarters. In the 1960s, Chelmsford's Corn Exchange was the venue of choice for some of the world's iconic musicians: Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd both performed on its stage in 1967. Tickets on the door cost ten shillings (about 75 cents).

Sadly, the Corn Exchange was pulled down a few years later as part of a city-center redevelopment that can only be described as legalized vandalism. The town's old heart was ripped out and replaced by shopping malls and office blocks. Marconi's New Street factory now lies abandoned as real estate developers wait for prices to rise again.

'Worth every minute'
However community pride was destined to show its face again. On Friday around 15,000 people gathered at Hylands Park just outside town to welcome the flame and celebrate with live music, dance performances and sports displays.

Read more coverage of the London 2012 Olympics

Of course there was the occasional snarky remark – after all, this is Britain: One man standing near me in the long line to get into the park said, "If this was Germany, the gates would have opened on time."

But most of my fellow Chelmsfordians seemed excited. 

Peter Jeary / NBC News producer

Ann Deane, 71, at a celebration in Chelmsford, England, for the Olympic torch relay on Friday.

Ann Deane, 71, was among the first to find a vantage point by the front of the stage. She told me she could remember when cows were herded down Chelmsford High Street on their way to the livestock market.

Deane praised the celebration as being what Chelmsford deserved. "It's the sort of thing that should happen in a city," she said.

The crowd buzzed as the appointed hour approached. The famous flame would soon appear. Children pushed to the front of crowd; smaller ones were lifted shoulder-high. Jen Harold, 31, squeezed in beside her family near the barrier.

"I've already seen the torch today," she whispered. "I was with my school in Southend. I only applied for these tickets because I'm going on a hen weekend (bachelorette party) tomorrow and won't get up in time to see it in the morning."

And then with a cheer, a wave and the lighting of a burning cauldron, the torch had suddenly come and gone.

Later I tracked down longtime Chelmsford resident Ken Edwards, one of the three runners responsible for getting the torch from the highway to the celebration Friday night.

Edwards, 61, has lived in Chelmsford for decades and was nominated to be a torch bearer by the city council for his contribution to the local sports scene. "It's a great honor, but it's for the community and not just for me. I'm just the lucky one."

I asked him what it was like to carry the Olympic flame.

"Do you know what?" he said. "It was an out-of-body experience. I felt I was watching myself running with the torch. I started off just walking, but with the crowd cheering I started jogging. I didn't intend to, it just happened."

Peter Jeary / NBC News

Torchbearer Ken Edwards, 61, a longtime Chelmsford resident, poses with children and the Olympic flame in Chelmsford, England on Friday.

He beamed as he posed for photographs with well-wishers and let them hold the torch. "This is what it's all about," he said. "People can't resist touching the thing."

And I think that's it. Once you're touched – however briefly – by the magic of the torch and the spirit of the Olympics, it's hard to be cynical about bad city-planning, British weather or commercialization.

Thousands more Chelmsfordians were touched by that Olympic spirit again early Saturday, when they packed the city streets to watch the flame pass by for the official relay. The cathedral bells tolled and people of all ages cheered as it made its way toward Cambridge on Day 50 of the relay.

David Cooper, 62, stood along the street with his 3-year-old grandson, Jack. "It won't happen again in my lifetime," he said. "It was worth every minute."

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LONDON - A tall, menacing actor famous for playing gangsters waits in a bar named The Blind Beggar, once the scene of an underworld revenge killing. Welcome to East London, the diverse and often eyebrow-raising home of this month's Olympics.

Forget the usual tourist honeypots of Buckingham Palace and Big Ben: Most of the 300,000 additional international visitors expected in London during the Games will see a district that is still evolving from its impoverished, industrial past into a vibrant and appealing part of Britain's capital.

The main Olympic Park is well inside London's sprawling boundaries, only four miles from the city's heart. Athletes will live on the site but thousands of team officials, visitors and VIPs will travel each day from central hotels and through East London to the Games.

"I don't know what they'll make of it," said Stephen Marcus, who played dodgy dealer "Nick The Greek" in Guy Ritchie's locally filmed 1998 gangster movie "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."

Sneak peek at Olympic Village: 'Not a five-star resort'

During the Olympics, Marcus will be giving guided walking tours, offering athletes and ticket-holders the chance to re-trace the steps of the real-life 'East End' mobsters who terrorized London in the 1950s and 1960s.

It is more relevant than you might think: Escaping from poverty, sometimes by criminal means, has been East London's back story over the past five centuries.

Slideshow: When the Olympics is your neighbor

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A diverse community in East London will welcome the world to Britain for the 2012 Olympic Games. Meet residents and hear how they feel about having a huge, world stage in their backyard.

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"Its downriver position on the Thames made it the city's gateway during Britain's maritime era and the industrial revolution," said Professor Miles Ogborn, head of the School of Geography at Queen Mary, University of London. "There were docks and sailors in the area, and everything you'd usually associate with that."

Filthy slums
With Britain's prevailing winds blowing industrial smog toward the east, London's 17^th and 18^th century developers headed in the opposite direction – establishing parks, theaters, royal residences and handsome squares in the west.

Click here for more London 2012 coverage

In contrast, the 'East End' descended into filthy slums for the diseased and destitute, earning a reputation as a den of immorality and inspiring many of the wretched characters in the novels of Charles Dickens. Not that its horrors were fictional: In 1888, five women who had turned to prostitution were murdered by a serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. The pub where he met his victims – the Ten Bells – is now a regular port of call for London walking tours.

"What is perhaps most shocking about those crimes, when you learn more about them, is the depth of poverty to which these women had fallen," said Ogborn. "This really was a terrible place to be."

But East London's darkest days came during the Second World War. Between September 1940 and May 1941, the German air force destroyed more than one million homes and killed 20,000 people in a bombing campaign known as The Blitz. The east, whose docks and factories made it a strategic target, bore the brunt of the attack.

'London's equivalent of Al Capone'
Instead of local redevelopment, post-war planners relocated many families to newly built towns and suburbs in the countryside. With the docks also in decline, derelict areas became a playground for career criminals, including the Krays – fearsome twin brothers and boxing champions who ran a casino and night-club empire on the back of protection rackets until finally convicted in 1968.

"They were London's equivalent of Al Capone," Marcus said. "They had celebrity guests and celebrity friends. They would've loved the Olympics, I'm sure ... they'd be at the opening ceremony in a VIP box."

Among the Krays' victims was rival gangster George Cornell, shot dead in front of drinkers in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel in 1966. The bar, which sits on one of the main thoroughfares between central London and the Games site, will be the starting point for Marcus' tour.

Social improvement began with Victorian-era philanthropy – the Salvation Army was founded outside the Blind Beggar by Methodist preacher William Booth – and has since been tied up with major urban regeneration.

Slideshow: Venues for 2012 London Olympic Games

Oda / Getty Images

From Wimbledon to Wembley Stadium to The Dome, a look at the venues for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

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The 1980s saw vacant docks transformed into Britain's second-largest financial center, complete with blinking 770-foot office tower One Canada Square and a light rail system. Canary Wharf is now home to the world or European headquarters of firms including HSBC, Citigroup, State Street, Clifford Chance, MetLife, Morgan Stanley and Thomson Reuters.

Alastair Jamieson for msnbc.com

Sandra Mjungwa, a store sales manager and East London resident, says the areas where the Olympics will be held is "unrecognizable compared to only a couple of years ago."

The main Games site has been created from industrial wastelands near Stratford, once home to toxic industries banished from more central districts by 19^th century social improvement laws. A massive soil clean-up has allowed 740 acres of polluted low-value brownfield land to be transformed into the Olympic area – although a major sewage pumping station remains defiantly in place.

Stratford station, once a dingy calling point to be avoided at night, is now a flagship transport hub for the Games and a stopping point for trains on the high-speed London-to-Paris Eurostar line. There's also a new $2.75-billion shopping mall, which three-quarters of ticket-holders will have to walk through to reach the main venues for events like swimming, basketball and track.

"The shopping has already made a difference to the area," store sales manager and local resident Sandra Mjungwa told msnbc.com. "It's unrecognizable compared to only a couple of years ago when nobody would come here unless they had to."

Kychia Messenger, 18, an electrical apprentice from Stratford, added: "It's already a better area; you see more people putting litter in the bin and there are fewer gangs hanging around." (The jury's still out on her last point: The day after msnbc.com spoke to Messenger, a man was stabbed to death in broad daylight in the mall after a gang-related brawl only a few yards from the Olympic Park entrance.)

Get behind the scenes with our 'TODAY in London' blog 

This has not deterred thousands of tourists from taking two-hour walking tours of the Olympic site perimeter, long before the Games have begun. "The tours are very popular – we do two on Saturdays now," said London Walks' guide, Kim Dewdney. "Prior to the Olympic redevelopment, nobody ever asked me for a tour of Stratford – but the Games has brought people here and hopefully opened their eyes to the local area."

Among those taking her tour on Friday afternoon was a family of Americans who had spent the morning seeing Westminster Abbey. Also there was Steve Venckus, in London on a business trip from Washington, D.C. "Even though I won't be here when the Games are on, I really wanted to see it all up close so I can say I've been there," he said.

Alastair Jamieson / msnbc.com

Kychia Messenger, 18, an electrical apprentice from Stratford, says there are now "fewer gangs hanging around" the area.

So can visitors expect a friendly welcome to East London? Since the arrival of Huguenot refugees from France in the 17^th century, successive waves of immigrants have made the area their home: Irish weavers, Ashkenazi Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe and, most recently, Bangladeshis. Brick Lane – once home to fabric factories and bagel bakeries – is now known as London's 'curry mile'.

In the six official Olympic boroughs of London – Hackney, Newham, Barking & Dagenham, Greenwich, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest – 42 per cent of the population is from non-white ethnic groups, and the area is home to dozens of mosques.

'Challenges'
Diversity of wealth is even wider: Tower Hamlets, which takes in the banking zone of Canary Wharf as well as the government housing projects of Stepney, contains some of Britain's poorest neighborhoods as well as some of its wealthiest. "One hundred and twenty-six languages are spoken in our schools and we have some very rich areas while only a couple of streets away there are people who are just getting by; those challenges are what makes the area interesting," Lutfur Rahman, Britain's first directly elected Muslim mayor, told msnbc.com. "I hope visitors will take the time to see our parks and attractions on their way to the Games."

Visitors may also indulge in a bit of celebrity-spotting: Ralph Fiennes and Keira Knightley are among those following a crowd of hispters and artists into the resurgent districts of Hoxton, Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. Once ghettos, the areas are now sought-after addresses for anyone working in arts or the media – the New York Times described East London as "by far London's trendiest area". Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in "Lord of the Rings," owns a historic pub called The Grapes near his riverside home in Limehouse.

"Artists have sought out the disused industrial spaces and made them their own," said Ogborn. "In the middle of once-bleak areas like Hackney Wick there are suddenly independent shops and bustling cafes full of artists, like the Hackney Pearl for example."

Alastair Jamieson / msnbc.com

"I think local people will be proud of Britain at the Olympics," said James Hamill, 25, barman at the Princess of Wales in Stratford and a catering worker at the Games.

Marcus said: "It's a community here. No matter what the nationality, ethnicity, and cultural group, there has always been and always will be a strong community life."

Some of the more traditional characteristics of East London have been well-documented in the long-running BBC soap opera, EastEnders, known chiefly for its grittiness.

"There will be some moaning – some of it quite justified – but on the whole I think local people will be proud of Britain at the Olympics," said James Hamill, 25, barman at the blue-collar Princess of Wales pub in Stratford. "We'll be very pleased to see people here."

Micah Smith, Andrew Gee and Jeremy Paduano, NBC News in London, contributed to this report.

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LOCOG via AFP - Getty Images

A handout picture released by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) on Tuesday shows a model of how London's Olympic Stadium would be transformed into a British rural scene for the opening ceremony of the games.

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.

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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