The Real 2012 Olimpicks are in the Cotswolds.

We were looking around for May Day celebrations and came across this. We will now be following the event, and showcasing some of the sports throughout May. Now, our apologies to those who organise and have attended for the last 400 years, we think we may of jumped onto the band wagon. If you were unsuccessful in tickets for Stratford there is always the Cotswolds, see you there. Post and photographs taking directly from the Cotswold Olimpiks website.

The 2012 Olimpick Games Programme
Friday 1st June

To celebrate our 400th anniversary, the 2012 programme will run from 2pm to midnight. Robert Dover will open the Games in front of his Castle around 7.30pm as usual but there is new entertainment on the hill in the afternoon primarily designed for children but with plenty for adults too.

But the surprise of this year's Games will be world premier of the Olympic Welcome Songs by Eliza Carthy, Robert Hollingworth, I Fagiolini and a 150 strong choir lead by Richard Stephens. This will be preceded by a folk concert at 5pm.

The evening will bring the traditional sporting events like the Shin-Kicking and Tug-of-War and the upper level favourites in the arenas. At 9.45pm the Scuttlebrook Queen lights the beacon, fireworks colour the sky and then there is the moving Torchlight Procession to the Square in Chipping Campden where dancing in the Square concludes the evening at midnight.
REMEMBER YOU CAN COME & GO ALL DAY WITH YOUR WRISTBAND!
This year's fun packed family programme is:


2 pm to 6pm

Jacobean Village with entertainers in period costume, Creative Campden, Falconry, Tug-of-War demonstration, Climbing Wall, Bungee Trampoline, Virtual Paintball and Fairground

5pm to 7pm
Folk Concert & I Fagiolini

7pm to 7.30pm
Welcome Songs with Eliza Carty, I Fagiolini and the Choir

7.30pm to 9.45pm
Lower Arena sports including shin kicking, Champion of the Hill, Tug of War final etc
Upper Arenas including Marching Bands, Morris Men, Academy of Dance, Performing Dogs, various wandering musicians and entertainers in period costume and, of course, the Fairground

9.45pm to 10.30pm
Fireworks & Torchlit Procession

9.30pm to 12.00am
Vinyl Daze playing in the Square


A Quick History, with our thanks to Wikipedia.

The Cotswold Olimpick Games is an annual public celebration of games and sports now held on the Friday after Spring Bank Holiday near Chipping Campden, in the Cotswolds of England. The Games probably began in 1612, and have continued on and off to the present day. They were started by a local lawyer, Robert Dover, with the approval of King James. Dover's motivation in organising the Games may have been his belief that physical exercise was necessary for the defence of the realm, but he may also have been attempting to bring rich and poor together; the Games were attended by all classes of society, including on one occasion royalty.

Events included horse-racing, coursing with hounds, running, jumping, dancing, sledgehammer throwing, fighting with swords and cudgels, quarterstaff, and wrestling. Booths and tents were erected in which games such as chess and cards were played for small stakes, and abundant food was supplied for everyone who attended. A temporary wooden structure, Dover Castle, was erected in a natural amphitheatre on what is now known as Dover's Hill, complete with small cannons that were fired to begin the events.

The Games took place on the Thursday and Friday of the week of Whitsun, normally between the middle of May and the middle of June. Many 17th-century Puritans disapproved of such festivities, believing them to be of pagan origin, and they particularly disapproved of any celebration on a Sunday or a church holiday such as Whitsun. By the time of King James's death in 1625, many Puritan landowners had forbidden their workers to attend such festivities; the increasing tensions between the supporters of the king and the Puritans resulted in the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, bringing the Games to an end.

Revived after the Restoration of 1660, the Games gradually degenerated into a drunk and disorderly country festival according to their critics. The Games ended again in 1852, when the common land on which they had been staged was partitioned between local landowners and farmers and subsequently enclosed. Since 1966 the Games have been held each year on the Friday after Spring Bank Holiday. Events have included the tug of war, gymkhana, shin-kicking, dwile flonking, motor cycle scrambling, judo, piano smashing, and morris dancing. The British Olympic Association has recognised the Cotswold Olimpick Games as "the first stirrings of Britain's Olympic beginnings".