Seven-year itch about to end as London set to kick off Summer Olympics

LONDON -- London's seven-year itch is about to end.

The 2012 London Summer Olympics will officially kick off with a grand opening ceremony Friday night here, as the 80,000 capacity crowd is expected at the Olympic Stadium for an event that could last into early Saturday.

London, selected as the host city seven years ago, will be home to some 16,000 athletes from 205 countries until Aug. 12. They will vie for 302 gold medals in 26 sports.

Danny Boyle, an Oscar-winning director of "Slumdog Millionaire," has been put in charge to produce the ceremony, details of which have mostly been kept under wraps. The British filmmaker, however, has said the theme will be "Isles of Wonder," drawing inspiration from a passage in William Shakespeare's "The Tempest."

London is the first city to stage three Olympic Games, following the 1908 and 1948 Summer Olympics. Under the slogan "Inspire a Generation," this year's Olympics will also be recorded as the first in which all participating nations will have female athletes.

Brunei, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have included women for the first time, and Qatar has named female shooter Bahiya al-Hamad as its flag bearer.

For South Korea, Yoon Kyung-shin, a male handball star competing in his fifth Olympics, will carry the national flag.

Officials said South Korea will be the 125th nation to enter the stadium. The country has sent 245 athletes in 22 sports to London, with an aim to win at least 10 gold medals for its third straight top-10 placement in the medal standings.

London represents a historic ground for South Korea. The 1948 London Games were the first Olympics in which South Korean participated under its own flag, after gaining independence three years earlier from Japan. South Korea claimed two bronze medals, one each in weightlifting and boxing, 64 years ago.

South Korea has since grown into a global sports power, having ranked among the top 10 in six of the past seven Summer Olympics medal standings. It has excelled in archery, judo, wrestling and taekwondo, and has recently snatched titles in weightlifting, badminton and swimming.

Even before the opening ceremony, South Korean athletes were thrown into action. The men's football team played Mexico to a scoreless draw on Thursday in their opening group stage match in Newcastle. Male and female archers are scheduled to compete in the ranking rounds later Friday to determine seeds for individual and team competitions.

The opening weekend of this year's Olympics holds plenty of promise for South Korea.

Male shooter Jin Jong-oh takes aim in 10-meter air pistol, the event where he won silver at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and he could win the country's first medal in London.

The men's archery team will look to win the country's fourth consecutive Olympic gold later in the day.

Nam Hyun-hee, who took silver in women's foil fencing in Beijing, will try to do one better this year.

Park Tae-hwan, the reigning Olympic champ in men's 400-meter freestyle swimming, enters the heat in the morning and the final is set for Saturday evening. Park will return to the pool Sunday for the heats and semifinal races in 200ｍ freestyle, where he claimed silver in Beijing.

The women's archery team will take to the line Sunday, and the men's football team will be back on the field against Switzerland for its second group stage contest. (Yonhap News)