Tag: Olympics

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Opening Ceremony thoughts

I’ve worried openly about the chances of London putting on a good Opening Ceremony, so I guess I should post a reaction: it’s a thumbs up (phew!).

I thought the whole opening movement from bucolic hobbitshire through the Industrial Revolution to the forging of the Olympic Rings was superb: genuine spectacle and theatre. I loved the pouring of the iron sequence: you can imagine so many opening ceremonies where the commentator intones ‘and this represents the pouring of the iron from the furnace’ while dancers in orange jumpsuits run along in a line, but Danny Boyle managed to come up with a theatrical effect that genuinely looked like molten metal, without any need for interpretation.

The other stand out moment was the lighting of the flame, which was a really striking image.

In between there were inevitably a few lulls, but probably less than most of these events. There were some bits that were maybe a bit too parochial, but I guess if they play well at home and help whip up enthusiasm for the Games, that’s no bad thing.

I liked the fact that it felt quite personal and quirky: the content clearly hadn’t been handed down from on high by a government with a point to prove. And I liked that it was sometimes quite dark, as these things go: so the opening section was on one level a celebration of the Industrial Revolution, but it was harsh, grimy, smoky, and the image of the British countryside being torn apart was intentionally brutal. And when it came to celebrate children’s literature, it wasn’t Winnie the Pooh and Mrs Tiggywinkle, it was Voldemort and the Child Catcher. There can’t be many times that night terrors have featured in an opening ceremony.

Some moments of real theatre, some humour, some touching moments, very few boring or cringeworthy bits: wahey, let the Games begin.

» The photo (of the rehearsal, as it happens, not the actual ceremony), is © Hannah Webb and used under a CC by-nd licence.

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The Olympics is a delightful oasis of non-corporate sport

I’m not being sarcastic; well, not entirely.

We’ve had months of angry coverage about the heavy-handed brand management put in place to appease the corporate sponsors of the Olympics: how ATMs at Olympic venues will only accept Visa, and McDonalds have an exclusive right to sell chips in the Olympic Park, and the torch relay is accompanied by a rolling advertisement for Coca-Cola, and you may be turned away from the events if you arrive wearing a T-shirt with a rival corporate logo.

So it’s worth pointing out that one reason they are so heavy-handed about asserting their branding rights is that there is no advertising in the venues themselves. When the sport finally starts, the athletes will not be competing in front of a backdrop of hundreds of corporate logos: just a lot of pink and blue London 2012 branding.

Which is a stark contrast to, say, Premier League football, where the players wear shirts with the team sponsor’s logo printed much bigger than the club badge, and the entire pitch is ringed by an enormous continuous pulsating distracting animated advertising billboard. Or Test cricket, which has advertisements spray-painted on the outfield, and all along the boundary rope, and the boundary boards, and the stumps, and the players’ bats, and the back of the umpires’ shirts, and the scoreboards, and where a 150-year-old cricket ground pisses on its own history by calling itself the Kia Oval.

I’m not necessarily suggesting that, if they were allowed to plaster the Olympic stadium with their own logos, so they knew they would be seen by the hundreds of millions of people watching on TV, the sponsors would relax their iron grip over every other aspect of Olympic branding. I’m sure they would like to have their cake and eat it. And it doesn’t justify the heavy-handed, joyless way their branding rights have been enforced.

But at least we should take a little pleasure in the fact that the winner’s podium is not going to have a Coke logo on it. The medal ribbons are not going to be Samsung-branded. There is not going to be a gigantic Procter & Gamble logo spray painted on the grass where the javelins land. Because if the Olympics was a normal modern sporting event, all that stuff would be true.

» ‘Olympic Torch Relay Day 64 Green Lanes 010‘ is © David Holt and used under a CC by-sa licence. The post-match interview is from an Indian Premier League cricket match. ‘Post match interview with AB De Villiers‘ is © Royal Challengers Bangalore and used under a CC by-nc-sa licence.

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A passing thought about the London 2012 logo

It could be worse. I give you… (drumroll please)… the logo for NBC’s official coverage in the States:

Now that is an astonishingly ugly piece of design to come from a major media company.

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Olympic opening ceremony: first impressions

From the beginning I’ve said that, although I was excited about London getting the Olympics, one particular worry was that the opening ceremony would be cheesy, amateurish or otherwise rubbish. We ought to be able to do it — there are plenty of people in the UK with expertise in putting on a show, whether it’s a West End musical, a pop concert or a Harry Potter film — but recent examples like Euro 96 or the Commonwealth Games have not been encouraging.

Well, the first details have been released. The ceremony is going to open with a recreation of the British countryside, with real grass, real trees, real farm animals, tractors, cricket being played, a recreation of Glastonbury Tor, and two ‘mosh pits’, one to represent Glastonbury Festival and one for the last night of the Proms.

So what do I think? I guess I’m cautiously positive. It’s an idea which, if it’s done well, could be impressive and memorable without trying to compete with Beijing for sheer megaspectacle. It could be a bit twee, but it could also be fun.

But that cautious enthusiasm is subject to the assumption that what they’ve told us so far is not the full story. I’m all in favour of warm beer, sheepdogs and cricket, but it would be very weird, in the 21st century, to present the UK as a rural idyll. There has to be some kind of indication that we are an urban, multicultural, modern nation. The games are being held in east London, not the Cotswolds: we don’t want a Midsomer Murders opening ceremony, whitewashed for the sake of cosy nostalgia.

But I think the organisers know that. So let’s trust that they have a few surprises up their sleeve.

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Half a cheer for Formula One

I’ll say one thing for Bernie Ecclestone: he may be a greedy, ruthless, vindictive, amoral little shit and a panderer to tyrants; but as far as I know, he’s never come out with any self-serving pablum about how Formula One brings the world together in peace and harmony, and thus promotes understanding and brotherhood amongst all mankind.

Unlike FIFA and the IOC.

Which doesn’t make him any less of a foul-smelling turd, but at least he isn’t a hypocrite about it.

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Olympic tickets: achieved!

I worked out what I wanted in advance, was waiting ready at 6am when sales opened, had my order in within minutes and got to the point where it was trying to process my payment… and the website basically died under weight of traffic. But after forty minutes of trying I managed to get the order in; and I learned today that I got tickets for beach volleyball and weightlifting, but didn’t get the basketball tickets I applied for at the same time.

Not getting the basketball means I’m not going to anything in the Olympic Park itself, which is a pity; but I was keen to see the beach volleyball, because of where it’s being held: Horse Guards Parade. Which is the parade ground behind Whitehall where they do the Trooping the Colour. You can actually see it from one of the windows of 10 Downing Street.

Weightlifting wasn’t my first choice; in fact, in a very literal sense it was my 12th choice, since I applied for nine sessions the first time round. But when I’ve seen it on telly it always seems naturally dramatic, and it’s cool to see people pushing the human body to its limits. It is, and I mean this in a good way, a bit of a freakshow.

» Park Yoon Hee of South Korea attempts a lift in the women’s over 63kg weightlifting finals of the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games. Photo: SPH-SYOGOC/Chia Ti Yan. Used under a by-nc licence.