Olympic Athletes Test Heathrow Airports Customs
LU STOUT: Live from Hong Kong, you are back watching News Stream. Now the Olympic games are set to open in just 10 days. Athletes and officials are starting to arrive from all over the world. And London is all geared up from extra staff at the airport to dedicated road lanes. Jim Boulden takes a look.</s>JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here they come, officials and athletes from around the world from 50 countries arrived in Heathrow airport Monday: Russians, Cubans, Italians, the Ducth. These ladies from the beach volleyball team have never been to London before, but they say Heathrow was a breeze.</s>MADELEIN MEPPELINK, DUTCH ATHLETE: Oh, really quickly. It's really special. They are so helpful. And there are so many people to help you. So we never had so quick our luggage and perfect.</s>BOULDEN: That meant the team could concentrate on why they are here.</s>MARLEEN VAN IERSEL, DUTCH ATHLETE: Yes, very special. It's something we've always dreamed about. And in a couple of days it's going to happen.</s>BOULDEN: One big worry leading up to the games has been the use of one of the world's most congested airports. The man in charge of terminal four saying so far all has gone to plan on day one. There are special lines for the Olympic family.</s>TOM WILLIS, OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, HEATHROW TERMINAL FOUR: The commitment to man every desk throughout the Olympics period, that commitment started yesterday. So at 0600 yesterday morning, every desk was open. And as a result the immigration queues have moved...</s>BOULDEN: So no complaints from any of the officials or athletes about getting throught Heathrow, at least not from the ones we spoke to. But this is just the beginning of the journey. They have to go on the Olympic lanes through west London, central London, and through to east London to get to the Olympic Village. There was talk on Twitter of at least one bus getting very lost going from Heathrow on the designated Olympic traffic lanes to the Olympic Village. Games organizers would only say some buses took longer than others. This French canoeist isn't worried. This is his fourth games.</s>TONY ESTANGUET, FRENCH ATHLETE: I know a lot of -- all the time there is maybe some problems before, but finally all the Olympics is perfect so I'm sure it's going to be OK.</s>BOULDEN: Most of those arriving Monday were team officials, not athletes, many with a lot of luggage. Logistics firm UPS is taking athletes' luggage from the airports to their base camps.</s>MARTIN PAVIS, UPS DRIVER: We've got a kayak. Also we have -- for those obviously super long, but we've got the vehicles to cope with that.</s>BOULDEN: UPS says using the special traffic lanes should get them and these athletes from Heathrow to the village in around 76 minutes. On day one at least, despite the rain, it was a big welcome for the summer games of 2012. Jim Boulden, CNN, London.</s>LU STOUT: Now as London prepares for the games, there have been problems on the security front after a contractor admitted it did not have enough staff. Now the head of the security firm G4S had to answer to the House of Commons home affairs committee today. Nick Buckles says that he was first made aware of the possible shortfall on July 3. Buckles says he regrets signing the contract. Now G4S was granted a $444 million contract to provide nearly 14,000 security guards. And the British government announced on Monday it would call on military personnel to help staff the games. Now it's been very rainy there in the UK. Will the weather improve ahead of the games? Mari Ramos joins us now from the World Weather Center -- Mari.</s>MARI RAMOS, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, Kristie, that a question we've been getting almost every single day here, not just from fans, but also from even here in the newsroom we're all talking about how rainy it's been. Our London bureau, the people keep asking us, what is going on with our summer? Well, you know what, this is a picture from the torch relay, the Olympic relay. And is that thing even on? You can barely even see the flame, but it's there -- a tiny little flame, you see that right there -- because it's been so rainy. This is in Portsmouth. And you can see there how all of the spectators are, you know, covered up. So the rain has not only been in London, it's been all across the region. Just kind of give you an example, when we were in June we had a record rainfall across the UK. In the England area, we had about 200 -- more than 200 percent of the average. As we head up to the north in Scotland, over 150 percent of the average. So we went from drought conditions to, you know what, we've had way too much rain. That's precisely what's happened, especially during the month of June. But here we go, we begin the month of July and it's still been persistently cloudy and persistently rainy. So let's go ahead and just look around a little bit and see what we normally would be able to look at during July and August. As we head now to the end of July and the beginning of August at the time when the games are supposed to happen. The hottest its ever been is 34 degrees. The average, though, is about 21. So that's pretty comfortable, right? The coldest it's ever been for daytime high is 6 degrees, so it can get very chilly. So I'm hoping those athletes are bringing their jackets just in case. Normally you get about six-and-a-half hours of full sunshine per day. So it does tend to be rather cloudy. About half the days are normally cloudy. And about on 12 days out of this period of time you really get some rainfall. So as you can see, it's -- the weather can vary greatly across this part of the world during these Olympic summer months. The weather pattern we've been stuck in has been with an area of low pressure to the north. The jet stream dipping farther to the south. And you can see this that that has been the weather pattern that we've been in. We're starting to see that jet stream starting to slip back over and the cooler, wetter weather will eventually be more toward Eastern Europe. And we'll start to see a bit more of a warm-up here across the west. That warm-up will come also with some generally warmer temperatures. It's already warmer in Madrid, 33. Temperatures are going to be heating up across this region. And notice all the way up to Brussels we're at 18. As far as London is concerned, 21, that's actually not too bad, right around where you should be this time of year. What about your weather? Let's go ahead and check it our right now. OK, let's head to Asia now because there's still a lot of problems going on here with also much too much rainfall. We're still seeing some very heavy rainfall across portions of southeastern China stretching back over toward Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, northern parts of Thailand, and even as we head into southern parts of Cambodia here and then back over toward Vietnam getting some very heavy rainfall there with the mayu bayou (ph) front and the monsoon still very active. But of course this is the feature to watch right now. It's still over the open water, moving across the islands here of southern Japan. This is our Tropical Storm Khanun. And Khanun has winds now gusting to almost hurricane force as you can see, up to 120 kilometers per hour. That's mainly near the center. The track we're expecting the storm to take is to go in the general direction of the Korean peninsula. Now they need the rain here, just not all at once. Right now it appears that we could get some locally heavy rain that could cause some flooding. It looks like western Japan, those areas, Kristie, that were affected by so much flooding earlier this week, remember they're still up here in Kyushu, looks like for the most part they'll be spared from this heavy rain if the storm stays on this general track. Back to you.</s>LU STOUT: Yeah. Here's hoping for that. Mari Ramos there, thank you. Now coming up next, reports of a massacre in Syria. Opposition troops say it happened in the city of Douma. We have an exclusive report. And meet an Egyptian sprinter who was out in Tahrir Square demanding freedom with his countrymen during the Arab Spring, now he's representing them at the Olympics.