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Olympic Facts - Snowdonia

1. The distance of the Olympic Marathon is 26 miles and 385 yards – this is equivalent to walking the Llanberis footpath to the summit of Snowdon 3 times, there and back!

2. The Men’s Olympic Cycle Road Race covers a distance of 155 miles. That’s the equivalent of cycling along the Mawddach Trail from Dolgellau to Barmouth 17 times!

3. The Olympic Rowing events are held over a 2,000m course on Eton Dorney Lake. In comparison, Llyn Tegid in Bala is 5,954m in length!

4. The Olympic Swimming Marathon will be a 10km swim in Hyde Park. This is equivalent to swimming the length of Llyn Celyn in the Tryweryn Valley, twice!

5. The Olympic Canoe Slalom calls on precision and speed in order to navigate the white water rapids of the course. Here in Snowdonia, we have our own National White Water Centre at Tryweryn which uses water from the River Celyn to create the rapids.

6. The Olympic Triathlon is made up of swimming 1,500m, cycling 40km and running 10km. This would be equivalent to swimming the length of Llyn Tegid four and a half times, cycling along the Mawddach Trail from Dolgellau to Barmouth 3 times and running up the Minffordd Path to the summit of Cader Idris and back, once!

7. The Olympic Men’s 50km Race Walk will be held on the streets of London and will be a real test of endurance. If you were to walk around Llyn Gwernan at the foothills of Cader Idris 16 times, this would be equal to the Olympic Race Walk!

8. Llyn Tegid is 42m deep. If he could run downwards and under water, Usain Bolt would reach the lake bed in under 5 seconds!

9. For the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, over 6.7 million tickets were sold for the events. Annually Snowdonia National Park attracts around 10 million visitors!

10. An estimated 10,500 athletes will take part in the 2012 London Olympic Games. On average, around 400,000 visitors reach the summit of Snowdon each year!