Olympic legacy to have Shropshire roots

Trees grown from acorns planted to commemorate the start of the modern Olympic movement are being grown in Shropshire and at Kew Gardens to provide a legacy from the London 2012 Games.

The UK helped inspire the modern Olympic movement because the Frenchman who founded the Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, was inspired by an event that took place in Much Wenlock.

Baron de Coubertin based his Olympic Games on the Wenlock Olympian Games, organised by Dr William Penny Brookes, and the two men became friends.

Now a total of 40 'Coubertin Oaks' are being planted around the UK so that people remember the London 2012 Games for hundreds of years.

The trees have been grown from acorns taken from an oak planted in 1890 during the visit of Baron de Coubertin to the Wenlock Olympian Games.

The Coubertin Oaks have already been planted at William Brookes School in Much Wenlock. Trees are also being planted at Kew Gardens, the Forestry Commission's National Arboretum, and at the UPS London Central Centre, in Camden. Twenty-six Get Set schools will also plant oaks as part of this project.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, in Kew, has also installed Olympic Rings, which are 50m long and made by up to 20,000 plants. They will be visible from the Heathrow flight path.

Meanwhile, volunteers around the UK are on course to complete an astonishing eight million hours of volunteering before the London 2012 Games start at the end of July.

About 70,000 volunteers are already a significant way through the million hours of training they will receive ahead of the eight million hours of volunteering they will deliver.

LOCOG, the organisation behind the London Olympics, says more than eight million will line the streets and cheer the thousands of community heroes carrying the Olympic flame around the UK.