London Olympics 2012: The tech powering the greatest show on Earth

It has been dubbed the "greatest show on earth" but hidden behind the glittering facade of London 2012 is a wealth of technology to ensure the Games gets top marks.

Whether it's cameras to broadcast the Opening Ceremony and every single sport, apps to help competitors train, cables powering each computer and timing network or the sheer number of photos captured by spectators, these Olympics will be full of gadgetry, gizmos and plenty of rather complex but extremely crucial kit.

Gerry Pennell, Chief Information Officer for London 2012 organisers LOCOG, told Yahoo! UK News: "There are no second chances for technology at the Games; it has to work well and work the first time.

"From the athletes’ point of view, technology is not a consideration, unless it goes wrong. We want to ensure the athletes can concentrate on their own performance and not give technology a second thought.

"For spectators watching in venues and the billions watching at home across the globe, technology will bring all the pieces of the jigsaw together to digitally enable the greatest show on earth."

The mammoth scale of the technological challenge is put into perspective when you consider that across the Olympic Park and another 94 venues, 3417 miles of networking cabling has been laid as well as 621 miles of broadcast cables. The latter would run the length of Land's End to John O'Groats with a little bit to spare while the former would get you from the UK to New York.

These cables will, among other things, power and connect 16,400 Acer PCs, 10,000 Panasonic televisions, 390 scoreboards from Omega, 16,500 fixed line telephones, 900 servers and a whopping 110,000 individual pieces of technology equipment.

Much of the responsibility for a smooth connected Games falls to Atos. They have been the Worldwide IT Partner for the International Olympic Committee since 2002 and are responsible for coordinating all the IT systems at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Having completed designs and plans for the infrastructure back in December 2009, last year Atos opened an operations centre at Canary Wharf to monitor systems 24/7.

Patrick Adiba, the man behind the project for Atos is well aware of the key role they are playing. He said: "Our challenge is to create an IT solution that allows the capture and reporting of every moment of the action and supports in bringing it to the world via television and the internet, first time, every time.

"The whole event is highly visible and the world is watching. And where victory is measured by the smallest margin, there are no second chances."

[Related Article: Gold medal apps to help you enjoy London 2012]

According to London 2012 bosses, a whopping 466 million photos and 334 years worth of video will be captured during the event with multimedia data generated at a rate of six gigabytes every single second.

And while Atos look after IT, it is up to Cisco to ensure all voice and video data from the Games – from scoring and timing to broadcast data – is transmitted safely and securely.

Ian Foddering, CTO, Cisco UK and Ireland, said: "Cisco is immensely excited that the Games are finally upon us. Over the past few years we have been working closely with organisers and partners to ensure a strong and reliable network infrastructure is in place. London 2012 is set to be the most connected games possible."

Cisco are also involved in preparing the Olympic legacy for east London ensuring technology is in place to allow the area to flourish for both residential and business use.

Ian added: "While this is the culmination of many years of preparation, Cisco sees the Games as the starting pistol, rather than the end of our involvement. We truly believe the Games can act as a platform for growth which spans far beyond summer next year."

Initiatives include supporting entrepreneurs with the right technology for startups to flourish locally and encouraging young people all over the UK to take their first steps towards a career in technology and new media.

But with so many sports and competitions taking place, broadcasting them all to the widest possible audience is one of the most crucial and immediate technological elements.

Organisers anticipate a worldwide TV audience of four billion people with one billion visiting the official London2012.com website.

All the action from every venue will be captured by the Olympic Broadcasting Services using 1223 cameras and more more than 621 miles of broadcast cable. Their pictures will then be distributed around the world with the BBC responsible for showing them in the UK.

The BBC itself will provide 2500 hours of live coverage on TV and online with 24 new high-definition channels created purely for the Games, four times more than used in Beijing in 2008.

Working with Adobe, they are also providing live video-on-demand giving surfers one-click access to catch-up on key moments from each sport whether on PCs, smartphones or tablets.

Japan's public broadcaster NHK along with the OBS are also helping to show the games in Super Hi-Vision, a successor to HD known as Ultra High Definition. It delivers picture quality 16 times sharper than HD with three special cinemas in Bradford, Glasgow and London set up to showcase this technology using Olympic broadcasts.

Over at the Olympic Park, Panasonic has provided three 152inch plasma screens - referred to as the world's largest - along with 42 of the 103inch version. These will be mounted at venues for spectators to see instant replays and action as it happens while Panasonic are also helping produce 200 hours of 3D Games coverage with their own 3D broadcast cameras.

Visa has also installed contactless payment technology at every venue making London 2012 the first Olympics where contactless cards and NFC-enabled mobile phones can be used to pay with.

Around London, O2 has just launched free Wi-Fi throughout the games in partnership with Westminster Council. It means anyone will be able log online across the West End of the capital near landmarks such as Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Parliament Square.

It comes just a few weeks after a deal with Virgin Media brought Wi-Fi to a series of London tube station platforms in time for the Olympics.

[Related Article: Free Wi-Fi At 80 Tube Stations By Olympics]

But as the London 2012 Games get ready to take the world by storm, there is one important group of people harnessing some of the newest technology available to its fullest. A number of individual athletes and teams have been using Apple iOS apps as part of their preparations.

They include camera and movie software to capture training sessions to watch back and analyse; the likes of Runkeeper to monitor training times; Stroke-Coach, used by Team GB's rowers to show average rowing rates and speeds; and Gymaware, which helps weightlifters achieve better acceleration during their sets.

Others tapped into are iPlaybook Field Hockey HD, used by the Indian national hockey team to draw up match plays and strategies, and Bupa Food Switch, which can analyse barcodes to check on the nutritional value of a product and then recommend a healthier alternative if needed.

Toni Minichiello, UK Athletics/Team GB Coach for Combined Events - who also trains British gold medal hopeful Jessica Ennis - said: "I use the iPad in my coaching as a way of showing film to athletes and using footage to give comparison between one repetition and another.

"The visual feedback is invaluable when trying to get across a new or subtle change to technique that will improve performance, as often we can't feel how to make the change until we can see it for ourselves. On seeing it, improvement comes faster."

And as the athletes from more than 200 countries compete, timekeepers Omega will be on hand with 420 tons of equipment to ensure every last millionth of a second counts. There will be 450 Omega professionals operating 70 public scoreboards and 320 sport-specific scoreboards managed by 111 miles of cable and speedy optical fibre connections.

In time for London 2012, Omega have updated starting blocks to measure reaction times through force not movement, innovated with new touch pads in swimming pools and created open water gates to pick up signals from transponders worn on the wrist.

With so much technology behind-the-scenes, it's no wonder organisers have already carried out 200,000 hours of software testing in a bid to ensure a smooth fortnight without crashes, slowdowns or technical hitches.

Just imagine someone in IT telling them to turn that lot off and back on again!