Telegraph Sport can reveal that the countdown clock was never correlated to countdown to the exact start of the opening ceremony, only to a general time of 7.30pm on the night of July 27, 2012.  Organisers have yet to decide on the precise timing of the opening ceremony – whether it be 7pm, the more probable 8pm, or even 12 minutes past eight, digitally represented as 20:12.  “A decision had to be made when to start the clock and it was agreed that 7.30pm was a time when the world would be focused on London, even if the ceremony starts a little later,” a Locog spokesperson said.  Ticket purchasers with Visa cards – the only credit card accepted for online Olympic ticket sales – which expire before August 2011, discovered within hours of the opening of the ticket website that they would have to apply by post because of the delay between ordering and mid-June, when money will be taken from accounts. Telegraph Sport had previously flagged this up as an issue.  Meanwhile, the notion that the London 2012 tickets would be heavily marketed and promoted in the UK and not in other parts of the European Union, which have the legal right to be part of the UK ballot, was thrown into doubt.  L’Equipe, the French daily sports newspaper, devoted three pages to the Olympic ticket process, including an interview with Locog chairman Lord Coe and a main front-page image of the controversial London Olympic logo. The French have been told the official and exclusive way to purchase tickets is on the London 2012 ticketing website, with details about the ballot system for oversubscribed sessions, or through the French national Olympic ticket seller, Eventeam.  London organisers, including Lord Coe, have been frustrated that the British tickets, by law, have to be available to all of the EU. However, the Games organisers are preparing to appeal to the EU if there is a an overwhelming flood of ticket applications from outside the UK.---------  The official countdown clock for the London 2012 Olympic Games has been unveiled in Trafalgar Square, now we want you to send us your alternative designs for the clock or other London 2012 icons.  Email us your ideas, images and drawings at olympics@telegraph.co.uk.
If only it were a wind-up. The official Omega countdown clock for the London    2012 Olympics stopped on Tuesday at 500 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes, 56    seconds, less than a day after it had started amid snow flurries in    Trafalgar Square.