Ra ra ra!

If you are reading this in bed, be careful – this edition contains sporting activity.

Digging for victory

If you want all the latest dirt on the London Olympic Games in 2012 – the scandals, the overspends, the displacement of rare species – don’t bother looking at London 2012. This is the official website for the games; all it needs is some pompoms and a short skirt to be the perfect cheerleader.

All of which does not make it all bad. No, really! There is a lot of interesting stuff here. They are at the stage of finding intriguing things as they dig up the sites of the various Olympic venues. Maybe I’m just sad, but I do like reading about the practical stuff, how many concrete columns they’ve built and what the Olympic Village will look like.

Obviously the sections on things like ticketing and the use of IT are sketchy and "aspirational" – that is, with fingers tightly crossed. There is a blog, with contributions from schoolchildren doing Olympic-related projects (no sneer intended – it’s a great "handle" for these projects) and official stuff from Uncle Seb and the team.

You can find a huge number of websites eager to knock the London Olympics – BBC London has a plentiful supply of pursed-lips coverage – but if you want the good news, brightly presented, look no further.

(From the Gateway to websites, select "Sport & recreation". London 2012 is a Key Link.)

Get up and go – where?

It’s probably too late to start a training regime which will get you a place in the team for 2012, but if your aims are more modest, Active Places could help. This site is maintained by Sport England, and "allows you to search for sports facilities any where in England by a number of different ways". Terrible grammar, but you know what they mean.

You can search by location, by particular sport, or go "freestyle", which means drifting around an interactive map until you find something that interests you.
The search engine found me 7 athletics tracks within 5 miles of my front door. Drat – no excuse there, then!

(From the Gateway to websites, select "Sport & recreation". Active Places is under "Sports clubs & facilities".)

Picture credit: taliesin/morguefile.com