There is less than one year to go until the start of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games, and for those of us working behind the scenes, the start of “the greatest show on earth” now feels tantalizingly close.

With 33 venues and 46 Olympic and Paralympic sports, each with their own challenges and special requirements, the London 2012 Games is a logistical undertaking without parallel.

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From horses to bikes, there is never a dull moment at UPS as preparations continue in the run up to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

A crucial part of our planning over the coming months has focused on testing the large-scale logistical processes that will be used during the London 2012 Games for the live, nationwide events.  

The latest event to put UPS to the test was the Deloitte Ride Across Britain (RAB), where we facilitated the event’s logistics processes over the course of nine days. Launched in 2010, the RAB offers the opportunity for approximately 600 solo riders and relay teams to raise money for Paralympics GB by cycling the iconic 900 mile route from John O’Groats to Lands End.

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Phil Devine springs off a diving board and performs multiple flips and twists before his vertical entry into the water below, barely displacing a few inches. Phil’s brother, Michael, bounds 32 feet in the air, performing adolphs, rudolphs and fliffusses following each bounce off of a trampoline.

John Devine, a 28-year UPS employee who works as an air operations supervisor in Illinois, hopes that the time and encouragement he provided his sons Phil and Michael will help them be successful in their journey to compete in the upcoming London 2012 Olympics.

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Imagine flying 600 pedigree horses and their equipment into the U.S. from all around the world. People rarely think about the staggering logistics operations that lie behind international sporting events. With the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London fast approaching, UPS travelled to World Equestrian Games 2010 (WEG 2010) to see large-scale equine logistics in action.

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Fresh from managing the logistical challenge of helping Team GB transport their sporting equipment to and from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, here in the UK we have been busy putting the finishing touches to the rebranding of our entire operations with a UPS/London 2012 composite logo.

In little over three months, we have applied the distinctive 2012 logo to more than 3,600 vehicles and 2,800 uniforms at all our UK facilities, including our largest hub in Tamworth – making it the first time in the UK that the UPS logo has been visible next to a partner logo in our day-to-day operations.

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What a start to the year it has been. After the euphoria of their nation’s success in the Winter Olympic Games, Vancouver did not have long to celebrate before it again played host to the world’s finest athletes, this time in the 2010 Winter Paralympics, which cumulated in March.

As my colleague Alan Williams previously wrote about at this blog, there are many logistical challenges to consider with an event of this scale, and there was a real sense around the city of both excitement and anticipation of the hard work needed to ensure everything ran smoothly. And at UPS, we felt this excitement too.

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