Boris: Stop whining, back Team GB

Boris Johnson has called on those worrying about the Olympics to "put a sock in it", stop complaining and get behind Team GB for the Games.

And his sentiments were echoed by London 2012 chief Lord Coe who hit out at the negativity surrounding the build-up to the Olympic Games.

Writing in The Sun newspaper, the Mayor of London implored the naysayers to look at the positive impact the Olympics are bringing to the city, rather than being gripped in a "paralysing stage fright".

Mr Johnson wrote: "We've got an advanced case of Olympo-funk. We agonise about the traffic, when our transport systems are performing well and the world's athletes are arriving on time.

"We worry about security when we always planned to have a strong military role in making our games as safe as possible. We gnaw our fingernails about the blinking weather, when it seems to be brightening up a bit - and anyway, it's England in July for goodness sake and a spot of rain never hurt anyone."

Meanwhile, former athlete Lord Coe said people were "overwhelmingly very positive" about the event, despite concerns over security, transport and strict sponsorship rules. "There are things we have done really well," he insisted, highlighting praise he had received from athletes and the international media about the facilities built for the Games.

But in an occasionally testy interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Lord Coe defended the Games organisers from claims that there had been a heavy-handed approach to protecting sponsors' rights.

Setting out the scale of the task, Lord Coe said: "This is really, really complicated. This is the ability to stage in 19 days, in this city, 26 simultaneous world championships."

Lord Coe said the venues had been "built on time and to schedule" and the organising committee had "raised the bar" in terms of delivering an Olympics. But he added: "This is a challenge, this is a very, very tough project. No city is challenged in the way a city is challenged when it delivers an Olympic Games."

Asked whether a "negative narrative" was taking hold, Lord Coe said: "I'm neither cavalier about this or overly sanguine. It comes with the territory." He added: "I'm talking to people who think they have come to a Games that has delivered in the areas that they need in a way that no Games has delivered before.