The countdown to the 2012 London Olympics starts on Sunday with flag-flying events throughout Oxfordshire.

With Britain already poised to have one of its best-ever medal hauls at the current Beijing games, the handover for the London Games in four years' time is expected to be greeted with celebrations across the country.

In Oxford, plans are in hand for an open-top bus tour and Lord Mayor Susanna Pressel will unfurl an official Olympic Handover Flag at the top of Carfax Tower at 5.30pm. Handover events will also be held in West Oxfordshire, Cherwell, the Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire.

In the west of the county, members of the Woodstock Harriers and Eynsham Roadrunners will carry a flag on a 38-mile journey, starting from Bartholomew Sports Centre, in Eynsham, at 7.30am and ending at the Windrush Leisure Centre, in Witney. The flag will then be hoisted at the district council's Wood Green offices in Witney at 2.30pm in a ceremony attended by athletes Graham Kiff, the blind triathlon winner at the 2008 Vancouver world championships, Felicity Denham, a British open champion weightlifter, and Imogen Shayler, a top British freestyle kickboxer.

In the Vale of White Horse, Scouts, Guides and air cadets are doing a sponsored walk to the top of White Horse Hill, near Uffington, where the flag will be raised at about 2pm.

In Garth Park, Bicester, and the town hall at Banbury, flags are to be raised at 2.30pm and 4pm respectively.

And in the south of the county, the River and Rowing Museum at Henley is the venue for a flag raising at noon - the moment when in Beijing Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London and until recently MP for Henley, will receive the Olympic flag from the Mayor of Beijing at the 2008 games' closing ceremony.