Organisers say the large crowds who turned out for the diamond jubilee celebrations mean numbers attending the Games might be even higher than expected. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images The government has promised the Olympics will come in under budget – at a cost of less than £9bn to taxpayers – but will spend extra money within that on crowd control measures in light of a bigger-than-expected turnout for the jubilee celebrations and the torch relay. The sports and Olympics minister, Hugh Robertson, admitted that organisers had underestimated by around a third the amount that would be required to pay for signage, stewarding and crowd control measures such as crush barriers and temporary bridges that will ease congestion in Greenwich and Hyde Park. It is expected that larger than expected crowds could throng the capital in the three days before the opening ceremony as the torch enters centralLondon and will turn out in huge numbers for the marathon and the cycling road race, which finish on the Mall….Read more

.Owen Gibson, Olympics editor guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 June 2012 17.19 BST