Royal Mail attempts a speedy delivery with Olympic stamps This will be the first time any host country has used action shots for gold medal stamps and issued them immediately during the Games, a Royal Mail spokeswoman said. Moya Greene, Royal Mail's chief executive, said: "Royal Mail is proud to be involved in this once-in-a-lifetime event and to recognise the success of Team GB. Our gold medal stamps will be unique souvenirs of the Games, marking the great achievements of our talented athletes. They will be a special way for people across the country to celebrate Team GB's gold medal wins and help mark their amazing achievement. We look forward to issuing many gold medal stamps to honour Team GB's victories. At the Beijing 2008 Games, Team GB won 19 gold medals and with hopes that British athletes will top this performance on home turf, the Royal Mail's stamp designers could have their work cut out. The celebratory stamps will be on sale by lunchtime the next day at 500 selected Post Offices across the UK. They will then be distributed three times during the Games to a further 4,500 Post Offices operating as normal across the UK. The Royal Mail said that even if a medal win is late in the evening, they will still aim to deliver a new stamp to post-offices for sale by lunchtime the next day. Although this is the first time Royal Mail has issued stamps to mark Olympic victories, the company issued its first Olympic Games stamps in 1948, with four stamps bearing the five Olympic rings. Olympic stamps were not issued to mark the 1908 London Games as Royal Mail stamps then bore images of the reigning monarch only.