Olympics: Apology for N Korea in wrong flag row

 abercrombie saleOlympic organisers have apologised to North Korean athletes whose images were shown next to the South Korean flag.The mix-up delayed the women's football match, at Glasgow's Hampden Park on the first day of sporting action.The men's football gets under way later, with matches including Britain v Senegal at 20:00 BST (19:00 GMT). Speaking to BBC News, Prime Minister David Cameron highlighted benefits of the Games, and said: "The real legacy is the inspiration to young people."He added: "People are going to be coming to our country over the next few weeks and seeing a really inspiring sight. "That's about a people's Olympics, not a government Olympics."'Very upset' The BBC's sports editor David Bond said the flag mix-up at Hampden Park had been an "embarrassing mistake" and not the start Games organisers would have wanted, but "no great harm was done".As the North Korean players were being introduced before the match against Colombia, South Korean flags were mistakenly displayed in the video package.The squad walked off and could only be persuaded to return when the teams were announced again with each player's face displayed next to the North Korean flag.Relations between the two Koreas are tense - they remain technically at war following the 1950-53 Korean conflict, which ended in an armistice.Speaking after the match, North Korea's coach Sin Ui Gun said: "Our team was not going to participate unless the problem was solved properly... "Unfortunately it took some time later for the broadcast to be done again properly and we made the decision to go on with the match."

abercrombie and fitch ukIt was not immediately clear who had produced the video shown in the stadium.A statement released by London 2012 organisers said: "We will apologise to the team and the National Olympic Committee and steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again."London 2012 spokesman Andy Mitchell said: "The South Korean flag was shown in the video package on the screen before the kick-off and the North Koreans were naturally very upset about that..."A genuine mistake was made for which we apologise."North Korea's state news agency KCNA made no mention of the blunder in its report on Thursday of the team's 2-0 victory over Colombia.North Korea will face South Korea in the first round of the men's Olympic table tennis team event after the pair were drawn against each other on Wednesday.'Value for money' In an interview on BBC Breakfast, asked about benefits to the wider UK from the London 2012 Games, Mr Cameron said: "I think we will get value for money as a country." He said that the Games were expected to come in under their ￡9bn budget, while there were predicted to be "￡13bn in economic benefits from the deals that are going to be done, the extra spending, the extra tourism and all the rest of it".The nation would enjoy the physical infrastructure left by the Games, he said, giving the example of the aquatics centre's expected 800,000 visitors a year."But the real legacy is the inspiration to young people who will want to take up sport, who will be inspired by the competitive ethos of the Olympics, who will see Britain at its best," the prime minister said.

abercrombie uk outletThe opening match in the men's football gets under way at 12:00 BST at Hampden Park when Honduras take on Morocco, followed by Spain v Japan. Matches are also taking place at St James' Park in Newcastle, Cardiff's Millennium Stadium and the City of Coventry Stadium.Fully 53 hours before artistic director Danny Boyle's much-anticipated spectacular in Stratford, an American referee named Kari Seitz walked to the centre circle of the Millennium Stadium, signalled to the 22 women from Great Britain and New Zealand's football teams and stepped away as GB number 14 Anita Asante swung back her right foot and touched the ball to Kelly Smith. There were no fireworks, no gigantic klaxon sounding, no glorious oratory and no roller-skating nuns (wait and see). Quiet history was made, nonetheless: the Games of the XXX Olympiad were unofficially under way. Few in the 24,549 crowd were entirely sure how to react. There was a good-sized cheer, a decent amount of smiling and a little bemusement. Was this how the Olympics were supposed to feel? Smith, perhaps understandably overloaded on adrenalin, immediately booted Asante's kick-off straight into touch on the left wing.This is not the first time that the Olympics have started before they have begun. It is now the norm that the first round of football matches take place before the opening ceremony; there are too many games and too few potential rest-days for the entire competition to be squeezed into the usual two-and-a-bit weeks. It also happens at most big athletics championships, usually to something like the men's shot put qualifying, which has previously given Britain's Carl Myerscough the unfortunate distinction of going out of the World Championships before they have actually been declared open. No-one in Cardiff was complaining. On the trains in from Bristol, Swansea, Swindon and Newport, kids had bounced in their seats while parents tried to keep them quiet with Olympic-based quizzes. What was Usain Bolt's favourite food? Does Sir Chris Hoy own a dog? How many medals did Michael Phelps win in Beijing?

 cheap abercrombie outlet ukThere were Union Flag face-paints and early incursions into carefully made picnics, excited texts and tweets to absent friends and double-checking of wallets and pockets holding precious tickets. Volunteers in the official purple T-shirts we will soon see as ubiquitous smiled and directed. Security staff dished out clear plastic bags, airport-style, and issued cheerful warnings of the checks ahead. Hawkers of unofficial merchandise did rapid business while keeping eyes and ears on the policemen strolling past in shirt-sleeves. For those used to the Millennium mayhem of Six Nations matches or the giddy madness of pre-new Wembley cup finals and play-off deciders, it was Cardiff city centre as seldom seen before, more in tune with the atmosphere around a Test ground before the first day's play rather than the boozy beery sing-a-longs of rugby and football. It was also extraordinarily warm and uncharacteristically cloudless up above. In the wettest summer in memory, the Olympics had somehow managed to arrive on the hottest, sunniest day of the year. Security was tight but efficient. Bodies had to be patted down and bottles of water emptied onto the baking pavements, but the queues that did form moved along at a lick and ended with smiles and small talk from the staff on duty. Inside the stadium, only the second verse of the national anthem caused any alarm.

abercrombie outlet Humming and mumbling filled the gaps; if a few west country accents occasionally talked inadvertently of the England team, the Welsh natives soon put them right. We even had our first chants of pan-nation support: not cheers of "Bri-tain! Bri-tain!" but a brand-pleasing, pedant-riling "TEAM GB!" (clap clap clap) "TEAM GB!" (clap clap clap). Thankfully here the result was a rather happier one than Myerscough's experience in Paris's Stade de France back in 2003. Steph Houghton's fine second-half free-kick, curled past Kiwi goalkeeper Jenny Bindon, gave Britain a start to the Games that was as perfect as the sky above. There will be more high-profile sporting ding-dongs to come in these Olympics. There will be more thrilling clashes, spicier atmospheres, more unforgettable displays. But it has begun, even by stealth. And those who saw it, if nothing else, will be able to say: 'I was there, and it was nothing like you might think.' James Holmes, 24, is accused of throwing two canisters of gas into a busy midnight showing of the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises, before firing at random into the crowd.Prosecutors say Mr Holmes had legally bought his weapons and the thousands of rounds of ammunition he had stockpiled in his apartment, which he had booby-trapped with explosives.Law fears On Friday, 29 July, the day following the shooting, the number was 1,216, and on the Saturday, 1,243. In total, 2,887 people were approved to buy a gun over the weekend, an increase of 43.5% on the weekend before, said the bureau. The bureau's figures cannot confirm how many people then bought a firearm, but gun shop owners also reported a rise in sales.Dick Rutan, owner of Gunners Den in the Colorado town of Arvada, said sales were "off the hook".