When the countdown's clock reached zero, Bradley Wiggins, the Britain's winner of Tour de France for 2012, wearing a yellow jersey, rang the Olimpic Bell to launch the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. The giant bell is the largest harmonically-tuned bell in Europe, two metres tall and three metres wide, weighing 23 tonnes, twice as much as Big Ben. It was forged for the Games at the foundry in Whitechapel, the same that has made Big Ben and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Its thunderous chime is a British tradition for celebrating the end of war and the crowning of kings and queens.