There are plenty of free events across five different sports where you can get close to some of the world's top athletes

Marathon

Sun 5 Aug 11am-2pm, women; Sun 12 Aug 11am-1.40pm, men

The grandest of all free-to-air urban sport, track and field without the need for a track or a field, the marathon has a grand tradition of popular inclusivity. For London 2012 pretty much the entire length of the 26-mile course is open to the public, a circular route that will begin and end on The Mall. The traditional grandstand finish in the Olympic Stadium has therefore been abandoned – along with the chance for London's East End to stage a bit of its own Games on its own non-telegenic streets. Instead the marathon will loop as far east as Tower Bridge, taking in the broad, spectator-friendly boulevards of the Embankment and parts of the City. Note to the usual London marathon crowd: don't come expecting Austin Powers, a man in a diving suit or a three-hour procession of wheezing nano-celebrities. It's just the fast ones this time. Don't blink.

Best vantage point The steps of St Paul's. Olympoccupy the City.

Walking

Sat 4 Aug 5pm-6.30pm, men's 20km; Sat 11 Aug 9am-1.20pm, men's 50km; 5pm-6.45pm, women's 20km

Why run when you can walk in the manner of an angry, super-fit, slightly camp person in small satin shorts? The race walk will take place on chunks of the marathon course, with the men doing 20km and 50km, the women restricted to the 20km. With three separate races taking place it is a genuine opportunity to bag some unticketed Olympic gold, albeit at a slightly more leisurely pace and accompanied by a neurotically precise preoccupation with heel-to-ground contact.

Best vantage point Ideally the walk would be going down Oxford Street, providing a rare and startling glimpse of people moving above 1.5mph. Failing that, the Embankment is always a spectacular place for a stroll.

Road cycling

Sat 28 Jul 10am-4.15pm, men's road race Sun 29 Jul 12pm-4.15pm, women's road race Wed 1 Aug 10am-11.30am, women's time trial; 1pm-4.15pm, men's time trial

Four separate events to choose from in what is perhaps the premium unticketed event of London 2012. The men's and women's road races are a cycle courier's nightmare: repeated high-speed laps of London's busiest thoroughfares, albeit with the danger of the veering, smudged white van removed. The time trial features staggered starts, so less of the here-they-come-there-they-go that tends to mar most roadside bike spotting. With Mark Cavendish involved in the road race this is the equivalent of getting a chance to watch Wayne Rooney booting a ball about on your local rec. Get there early.

Best vantage point The wondrously scenic Box Hill; or, failing that as wristbands will be issued to limit numbers, any Richmond pub with an outside table.

Triathlon

Sat 4 Aug 9am-11.40am, women Tue 7 Aug 11.30am-2pm, men

Outstanding value for no money: three disciplines jammed into the mid-sized hectarage of Hyde Park, with competitors constantly engaged in some form of swim-bike-run, the latter two in lap form. Hyde Park on a sunny day is a kind of urban heaven anyway. Chuck in athletes running 10km in swimming trunks and who could ask for more?

Best vantage point The dirt track on the south side for sprint finish possibilities – plus the chance to see Prince Philip riding about in his horse and cart.

Sailing

29 July-11 August

Some Olympic freebie controversy here, with Locog being criticised by locals for turning Nothe Gardens in Weymouth, the perfect spot to witness Olympic boatiness, into a ticketed area. There are ways round it: a vantage point by Newton's Cove; a free site with a giant screen on Weymouth beach; and of course the piracy option. All you need is a speedboat, some derring-do and the open sea. Fence that, Portland council.

Open water swimming

Thu 9 Aug 12pm-3pm, women

Fri 10 Aug 12pm-3pm, men

Another Hyde Park spectacular, with a paid area around the VIP plastic pavilion at the lake's north shore and a large mill-about area on the south bank on which weary Knightsbridge shoppers can take a break and instead enjoy the spectacle of a row of heads bobbing around the lake in slipstream formation and being menaced by geese for 40 minutes before exploding into a last-lap sprint finish.

Best vantage point The bridge over the Serpentine; failing that, and dependent on availability, a £10m penthouse at One Hyde Park.

Live sites

The last resort when all else fails and the prospect of a leaping man in a Team GB jester's hat trampling your picnic hamper seems oddly appealing. Live sites will be city-centre fan zone-type places with big screens, refreshments on sale and assorted people bunking off work to watch the yngling heats. There are 22 of them across the UK from Portsmouth to Edinburgh, ideal for that live BBC "let's see how that sensational bronze medal for Phillips Idowu went down across the country" moment.

Torch relay

19 May-26 July

The last, last resort for those who want to be warmed, perhaps literally, by the Olympic spirit without having to even watch any sport. For reasons that may perhaps make sense when it happens, the torch is being ferried around every local authority in Britain by "inspirational people". No, not you, Konnie Huq.

Actually buying a ticket

Believe it or not, there are still some paying opportunities to spectate a home Olympics. Around 1.5m Olympic football tickets went on sale in November and have not sold out, while another tranche of Paralympics tickets went on the market in December.