LONDON (AFP) — Around 40,000 people including record-breaking American swimmer Michael Phelps gathered Sunday to celebrate 2012 host London taking over from Beijing as the Olympic city.
The spectators watched the Olympics closing ceremony in Beijing on giant TV screens set up on the Mall near Buckingham Palace, the official residence of Queen Elizabeth II, before enjoying a pop concert.
The flag-waving crowd roared their approval when the big screens showed the Mayor of London Boris Johnson taking possession of the Olympic flag during the ceremony in Beijing.
The cheers grew even louder in London when, thousands of miles away in the Chinese capital, England football star David Beckham kicked a football from the roof of a red London double-decker bus.
As the curtain came down in Beijing, British rock acts including McFly, Will Young and soprano Katherine Jenkins entertained the crowd in London.
The star attraction at the party was Phelps, the 23-year-old from Baltimore, who won eight gold medals in the pool, the highest number ever by one competitor at the Olympics.
He promised that he would be back in Britain in 2012 in search of more gold.
"I still have things that I want to do in the sport, I've never competed over here in London and I'm looking forward to really experience more of the city and be able to prepare myself to hopefully swim some fast times."
As the lanky figure of Phelps took to the stage, he was greeted by a flypast by the Red Arrows, the British Royal Air Force's aerobatics team, trailing red, white and blue smoke.
The jets also swooped over the British capital on the day in July 2005 when London was awarded the 2012 Games.
Organisers said more than 200,000 people took part in Olympic handover parties across Britain, including in the central English city of Birmingham, which will host some of the Olympic football matches, and in Weymouth on the south coast where the sailing will take place.
Bradley Wiggins, a double gold medallist in Britain's phenomenally successful cycling team in Beijing, had jetted back to appear at the party, along with Phillips Idowu, who won silver in the triple jump.
The British team's success at the Beijing Olympics, where it won 19 gold medals and finished fourth in the overall table, has taken many here by surprise and some commentators say it could help dissipate some of the cynicism about how much the London Games will cost.
The original budget was 3.4 billion pounds but has already risen to 9.3 billion pounds (11.7 billion euros, 17.2 billion dollars).
Even the queen has been caught up by Olympic fever -- she said she had been following Team GB's successes "with great interest and admiration".
"As a nation, we now look forward to holding the Olympic games in London in 2012," the monarch said in a statement released Sunday.
"The golden triumphs of the present British team can only serve as further inspiration to those who will be working hard over the next four years to make the London games a shining example of Olympic success."
Organisers say the London Olympics will not try and emulate the scale of the Beijing extravaganza but aim to be "sustainable" Games which leave a lasting legacy for the deprived area of east London where they will be based.
Organisers should aim to put their own distinctive stamp on the Games and not try to one-up Beijing's effort, British newspapers said on Monday.
Several newspapers called for a "quirkily British" take on the Olympics.
"The handover was marked with a quirky eight-minute cameo of the capital that smacked more of the swinging Sixties than of the 21st-century cosmopolis that will stage the next Games," The Daily Telegraph's editorial read.
"If this is a statement of intent from the 2012 organisers that they will not try to match Beijing in scale or spectacle but will instead rely on flair and wit, it is commendable.
"As an emerging superpower, China felt it had something to prove. London should -- in keeping with our nation's character -- be a little more understated."
The Daily Mail chimed in, noting that the "burden of expectation weighs heavy, and hopes are high", adding that the organisers of the London Games "are no doubt nervous, wondering how on earth they follow that."
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