Royal Mail's Olympic race to produce medallist stamps
- Published
The GB gold rush has created a marathon task for Royal Mail, which is rushing out stamps in honour of each winner.
Royal Mail has promised to issue a stamp bearing the medallist's picture within 24 hours of the victory being secured.
A team of more than 100 people works against the clock to rush out the stamps, which are printed at six locations around the UK.
That means they can reach 500 post offices by lunchtime the day after a gold medal win - even on Sundays.
At least one of those branches is in the home town of each gold medal winner.
Some 4,700 branches will receive the gold medal stamps within a week from a 90-strong fleet of Royal Mail vehicles.
Weekend gold-rush
Once a gold is secured, Royal Mail officials have just one hour to review images submitted by official Olympic photographers Getty Images and select one to give to the eight-strong stamp design team in London.
On Sunday, Ben Ainslie had an emotional victory in the Men's Sailing Finn, and Andy Murray's win in his men's singles tennis final Wimbledon rematch against Roger Federer took the tally to 16.
So far, the stamps show:
Helen Glover and Heather Stanning - Women's Pair Rowing
Bradley Wiggins - Men's Cycling Individual Time Trial
Etienne Stott and Tim Baillie - Men's Canoe Double (C2)
Peter Wilson - Men's Shooting Double Trap
Sir Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny, Philip Hindes - Men's Team Sprint
Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins - Women's Double Sculls
Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas, Peter Kennaugh and Steven Burke - Men's Team Pursuit
Victoria Pendleton - Women's Cycling Keirin
Andrew Triggs Hodge, Pete Reed, Tom James, Alex Gregory - Men's Fours
Katherine Copeland, Sophie Hosking - Women's Lightweight Double Sculls
Laura Trott, Dani King, Joanna Rowsell - Women's Team Pursuit
Jessica Ennis - Women's Heptathlon
Greg Rutherford - Men's Long Jump
Mo Farah - Men's Athletics 10,000m
Ben Ainslie - Men's Sailing Finn
Andy Murray - Men's Tennis Singles
The stamps cost the normal first class price of 60p.
Meanwhile, Royal Mail has painted itself into something of a corner with another pledge - to paint a postbox gold in each of the medallists' home towns.
Laura Trott had expected hers to be in Cheshunt, Herts, but a box in Harlow, Essex, was painted because the town is listed as her birthplace on the Team GB website.
Royal Mail will now paint a box near her former primary school in Cheshunt.
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