Panasonic Corporation today announced the Panasonic Kids School "Rope Jump" event at Park Live, the official live site of the Olympic Park. The event happened twice on July 31 in partnership with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) during the London 2012 Olympic Games (London 2012). Six lucky primary school students, aged between 10-12 years old, from Surrey were invited to join the celebration of the Panasonic Kids School ‘Rope Jump’ event at the Olympic Park alongside an audience of 10,000 people, whilst one of Britain’s leading female athletes, Kelly Sotherton, presented the winners with their medals.

“Rope Jump” is part of the Panasonic Kids School activities; a variety of educational programs conducted worldwide which saw 460,000 children take part last year. Panasonic’s unique skipping sport requires more than ten people skipping together using a skipping rope for three minutes. They compete for total points during the three minutes based on the numbers of the jumps and rotations made during the time.

The Japanese students demonstrated Rope Jump in front of 10,000 Olympic Games fans visiting the Olympic Park Live Site. The Park Live stage is ‘floating’ on the river and has twin giant Panasonic LED large screen display systems, each with a total display area of 133 square meters.

The winning team, "Asahi Jumping Infinity” from Asahi Elementary School (Kanagawa, Japan), was joined by “St. Lawrence Leapers” from the St. Lawrence Church of England School (Surrey, UK), to take part in the special one-day event. "Asahi Jumping Infinity" is the winner of the 3rd World Rope Jump Championship, coming out on top out of the 465 teams taking part from 11 countries globally: Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam.

Takumi Kajisha, Senior Managing Executive Officer of Panasonic said, “Panasonic is proud to support this initiative and help build international friendship as well as get the chance to take part in the London 2012 Olympic Games through our ‘Rope Jump’ event. We strongly support LOCOG’s Youth Initiative as one of the legacies of London 2012 and appreciate their support and commitment to making this event happen.”

Bill Morris, Director, Education Program of LOCOG said, "Panasonic is supporting the Olympic Park Live Site with its LED screens, as part of its worldwide sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The Rope Jump event is part of the partnership and really supports our commitment to inspiring the youth. There is no doubt that the Games will provide a memorable experience for the children, spectators and the whole community.”