Electronic resources: Olympic records available online

Hundreds of historic documents and images relating to the Olympic and Paralympic Games have been made available online by The National Archives for the first time.

Our new site The Olympic Record includes a timeline feature which enables visitors to track back through time and browse material from every summer Olympics, from Athens in 1896 to Beijing in 2008.

Highlights from over 180 online records include:

- records from the London Olympic Games in 1908 and 1948, including arrangements for the first marathon at the now-standard distance of 26.22 miles and accommodation and rations for athletes in the aftermath of the Second World War;

- Foreign Office discussions over Britain's participation in the controversial Nazi-run Berlin Olympics in 1936;

- papers relating to the Greater London Council's plan to host the Olympics in London's Docklands in 1984 and 1988 and Manchester's failed bid for the Games in 2000;

- archived web pages in the UK Government Web Archive from Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

The site also provides a gateway to the hundreds of different sporting and cultural activities happening across the country this Olympic summer, from celebrations at national and regional venues to local school and community projects.

The National Archives has taken the lead in working with central and local government as well as sporting, cultural, media and heritage organizations to ensure records relating to London 2012 are preserved for future generations. This will be the prelude to The National Archives taking and making available vast collections of digital records in the future.