Olympic Hopefuls

Thousands have responded to the Royal Mint's challenge to design a coin for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

In all, more than 20,000 entries were submitted for the competition to create reverses for the special 50p coins that will be launched to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

From those, one winning design will be chosen for each of the 29 different Olympic sports. Viewers of the BBC children's programme Blue Peter contributed designs celebrating athletics, while secondary school students designed the cycling coin and the nation was asked to provide designs for the remaining 27 events.

Dr Kevin Clancy, Head of Historical Services at the Royal Mint, said: 'We have had a good level of response to the competition, with some extremely good designs.'

Winners are due to be announced in November.