A brand new wax figure of top Jamaican runner Usain Bolt has just joined the sports zone in Madame Tussauds in London.

The world is waiting to see if the three-times gold medallist Usain can take home more gold during the London 2012 games. This week is the perfect time to visit Madame Tussauds to see the sporting hero striking his famous “to di world” pose.

As well as finding out how you measure up against speedy Bolt, you can also meet wax figures of other great sporting legends including David Beckham, Rafael Nadal, Jessie Owens, Mohammed Ali and Team GB favourites, diver Tom Daley and heptathlete Jessica Ennis.

Have you been to Madame Tussauds recently? Which figure do you think it the most lifelike?

If you were elsewhere, here’s a little round-up of yesterday’s London 2012 Olympics news.

The designs for the London 2012 medals were revealed. Designed by British artists David Watkins, the medals show Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory stepping out of the Parthenon, the same as all summer games medals. On the back, there’s that 2012 logo, with the outline of the River Thames running through it, and a grid radiating out from the centre “representing the athletes’ achievements and effort,” according to the designer. The ribbons are royal purple: a nod to the Queen’s diamond jubilee.

They’re the biggest-ever summer Olympic medals (85mm in diameter), and rather heavy too, weighing 375-400 grams.

The medals are each made of:

• Gold medal: 92.5% silver, 1.34% gold and the rest copper (a minimum of 6g of gold)
• Silver medal: 92.5% silver and the rest copper
• Bronze medal: 97.0% copper, 2.5% zinc and 0.5% tin

The other big news from last night was the newly completed Aquatics Centre. To mark the completion of the final permanent venue for the London 2012 Olympics, Tom Daley, team GB’s big diving medal hope, tested the waters. Here’s a video of that jump, below:

Did you enjoy the One-Year-To-Go celebrations? Let us know in the comments below.

Tom Daley, Ken Livingstone, Rebecca Adlington and Tessa Jowell all feature in a new Olympic-themed exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

Road to 2012: Setting Out includes portraits of the athletes, politicians and engineers involved in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Two artists were commissioned to produce work for the show:

• Brian Griffin is famous for his depiction of people at work. He photographed builders on the Broadgate site in the 1980s, and workers on the High Speed 1 railway in 2007.
• Bettina von Zwehl graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1999 and has since exhibited around the world.

The exhibition is part of an ongoing project to document London 2012 through 100 commissioned portraits and interviews. More work will be revealed next summer, and there will be a big exhibition to coincide with the opening ceremony for the Games in 2012.

Road to 2012: Setting Out is at the National Portrait Gallery until 26 September 2010. Admission is free. Contribute your own photos to the Road to 2012 Flikr pool