White Pages® News

Green and gold guide to London 2012

July 26, 2012

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Aussies have the chance to beat the English on their home turf at the biggest sporting event in the world – the Olympics.

This week the green and gold warpaint will be coming out en masse when the biggest sporting event in the world kicks off on Friday July 27.

To help you celebrate every Aussie victory, we’ve put together a green and gold guide to the Olympics – showing how White Pages® can help you celebrate at home, what events you might see Aussies dominate and just how sporting our Olympians’ surnames are.

Celebrating at home

If you can’t make it to London, the best place to watch the Olympics is at home. Channel Nine will feature live coverage from 6.30pm to 9am on competition days, and then highlights packages from 9am to 11am, repeated from 4pm to 6pm.

Foxtel has eight channels dedicated to Olympic coverage, broadcasting every gold medal event live and in full.

Before you tune in though, consider hiring or purchasing a gold medal worthy telly on which to enjoy the action and a personal video recorder to capture the moments you might miss. Pop the name of your local electrical retailer into White Pages® Business Search to get its contact details and upgrade your box.

Tackle the time difference between Australia and London using White Pages® World Time tool, which can provide the current local time in hundreds of cities across the world.

What to watch

Australian athletes will be competing in 35 events from swimming to table tennis and judo to shooting. Too many events to choose from? Check out Channel Nine’s guide to must-sees. Tick off one of these games every day and you should have plenty to talk about around the office water cooler.

If there are some particular sports or athletes you want to see in action, check out the Aussie team’s Olympic website, which includes a handy schedule showing when Aussie sports heroes are competing and on what days they could be up for gold.

The site’s sporting page also provides an excellent overview into how all the Olympic sports work, including those little-known sports such as table tennis, fencing and badminton. Read up and you could soon impress your friends with your well-informed commentary.

Gold medal surnames

They might not have started competing yet, but some of our Olympians are already number one. Kayaking stars Dave and Tate, hockey champ Emily, badminton’s Ross and volleyballer Luke all share Australia’s number one surname – Smith.

Following close behind is breaststroker Leisel Jones, with Australia’s second most popular surname. Rower Matt Ryan also makes it into the top 20 most popular surname list at number 17.

But just how popular are our most well-known Olympians? Swimmer Stephanie Rice might be popular in the gossip magazines, but her surname is only shared with 1,500 other Australians. Cycling champ Cadel Evans’ surname is a bit more popular, with more than 10,000 listings in White Pages®. Long-time basketball legend Lauren Jackson has a healthy 9,000 Jacksons spurring her on down under.

With the Olympics set to dominate the news, small talk and our hearts over the next few weeks, get into the spirit. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi!