2012 Olympics

The 2012 Olympic Games, also known as the London Olympics or London 2012, were the Olympic Games held in London. They took place in the summer of 2012. (TV: Fear Her)

The Eleventh Doctor saved a torch bearer from a Weeping Angel. (TV: Good as Gold) Danny Fairweather carried the Olympic Torch through Dame Kelly Holmes Close on 27 July 2012 near the opening ceremony. Huw Edwards, reporting this, found it "very fitting".

13,000 athletes participated and 80,000 people were in the crowd to watch the opening ceremony. The Isolus temporarily brought them all into a drawing to stop being lonely, but it wasn't enough. Rose Tyler, using the heat and its status as a beacon of love, heated the Isolus pod, and the spectators and athletes were brought back. Due to a mishap along the Olympic Torch relay route, the Olympic Flame was lit at the opening ceremonies by the Tenth Doctor, who appeared on international television doing so. Afterwards, he and Rose attended a neighbourhood celebration, including cupcakes and edible ball bearings.

According to the Tenth Doctor, Papua New Guinea surprised everyone in the shot put this year. (TV: Fear Her)

The Fifth Doctor attempted to take Nyssa and Tegan Jovanka to the 2012 Olympics but the TARDIS instead materialised in London in 1982. (AUDIO: The King of the Dead)

Somewhere around the same time, the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond met an athlete who was on the run from a Weeping Angel who was trying to steal the Olympic Flame in order to ruin the spirit of the Olympics, and ended up in the TARDIS. The Angel took the torch with the flame, but the Doctor destroyed the Angel with his screwdriver and received a gold medal for saving the Olympics. (TV: Good as Gold)

The United Kingdom issued a commemorative pound coin celebrating the London Olympics, one of which ended up in a coin-operated vending machine in Manchester in 2008. (AUDIO: The Raincloud Man)

In the far future, radio and television broadcasts concerning the 2012 Olympics could be accessed via the Gogglebox inside the Moon. (AUDIO: The Reaping, The Gathering) While in a bubble prison, Panda imagined that he had won four gold medals in one day at the 2012 Olympics. (AUDIO: Whatever Happened to Iris Wildthyme?)

Behind the scenes
Matt Smith, rather than David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, actually did participate in the Olympic Torch relay, carrying the torch from Cardiff on 26 May 2012. A substantial petition, signed by a grand total of nearly 40,000 people, called for Tennant to bear the torch himself.

The opening ceremony in London, entitled, was written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who later penned several episodes of Doctor Who. Though a big, commemorative video for Doctor Who was in fact planned for the ceremony, along with an appearance of the TARDIS, this whole presentation was cut last-minute. Nevertheless, the sound of the TARDIS materialising can still be heard during Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".