The Lottery has contributed £2.2 billion ($3.4 billion/€2.7 billion) to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, including £750 million ($1.2 billion/€924 million) generated from the sale of specially-designated lottery games.

The campaign by Camelot, the operator of the Lottery, will include television and print adverts featuring Team GB athlete Jenny Meadows, the 2009 world 800 metres bronze medallist, and her mother Barbara, who was also an athlete but had to cut her career short due to a lack of funding, as well as wheelchair basketball player Maddie Thompson and fencer Richard Kruse.

The television adverts, due to be launched next Sunday (June 10), are designed to demonstrate that while a number of firms have paid several millions of pounds to sponsor London 2012 the biggest backer of the Games has been the British public. 

The campaign will feature the strapline: "Nobody has contributed more to athletes than you".

Camelot's managing director Andy Duncan (pictured above right) said: "The vast majority of people who are marketing around the Olympics frankly have very little to do with it, they just happened to have paid for the right to market around it.

"We are actually connected with helping the top athletes train to win medals."

Last month London 2012 presented Camelot with a flag, acknowledging its role as an official contributor of the Games.

The official contributor flag was received by the Dianne Thompson (pictured above left) Camelot's chief executive, and Duncan.

Camelot is flying the flag outside its head office in Watford.

"As the largest single contributor in Olympic and Paralympic history, our recognition is well deserved and the legacy - once the Games have concluded - will provide lasting benefits for local communities and the nation for generations to come," said Thompson.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
December 2011: National Lottery unveils "Class of 2012"
April 2011: National Lottery funding for London 2012 reaches £500 million landmark
June 2008: Britain's favourite Olympians to feature on new scratch cards
November 2007: Sales of Olympic lottery tickets slump
August 2007: Camelot retain Lottery licence for Olympics