I may be a gazillion miles away today, but I’m thinking of London. In six months time on 27 July 2012, the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games will be held. It feels like only yesterday I was (sort of) running the Olympic marathon myself. Did you know that there’s certain elements that must feature in every Olympic Games Opening Ceremony? No? Then prepare to read some of the things you’re going to learn today as well as a few predictions from me…Receiving the Head of State of the Host Country
The Queen will be earning her keep and will be met at the entrance of the Olympic Stadium by the President of the IOC Jacques Rogge and the Chair of the Organising Committee Sebastian Coe.
Prediction: the Queen will wear blue and Seb Coe (who already has a Kinghthood) will be asking her why the sword and chainmail suit hasn’t been delivered to him yet.
Parade of Nations
A procession of the participating teams into the Stadium, nation by nation. Teams enter in alphabetical order, according to the language of the Host Country, apart from the Greek team, which enters first, and the Host Country (in this case Team GB), who march in last.
Prediction: the resulting static electricity caused by hundreds of shell suits in one place will cause all athletes’ hair to stand on end for the rest of the games.
Speeches
Chair Seb Coe will give a speech, followed by the President of the IOC, Jacques Rogge. He will end his speech by introducing the Queen to officially declare the Games open.
Prediction: this will be boring, so go get yourself a drink.
Olympic Anthem and the entry and raising of the Olympic Flag
Once the Games have been declared open, the Olympic Flag is carried into the Stadium and hoisted into the air as the Olympic Anthem is played.
Prediction: a new Olympic Anthem will be revealled. It’s written by Gary Barlow and is called ‘Relight my Olympic fire’. He’s been busy with X Factor so could only manage a reworking of some of his old stuff. This time there’s no Loulou though which is a result.
Oaths
A participating athlete, judge and coach from the Host Nation stand on the rostrum and, holding a corner of the Olympic Flag in their left hand and raising their right, take the Olympic Oath, vowing to compete and judge according to the rules of their respective sport.
Prediction: you won’t recognise any of these three people but months of bickering will have happened to decide who does this job for Team GB.
The Torch and lighting of the Cauldron
The big finale is the entrance of the Olympic Flame into the Stadium. It is passed through the athletes to the final Torchbearer, who will ceremoniously light the Olympic Cauldron, indicating the beginning of the Games.
Prediction: miffed at being left out of the new Olympic anthem, Loulou will pop up with a flame thrower singing a mash-up of ‘Shout’ and ‘Wheels on fire’.
Feel free to add your own prediction in the coments box.
Idea: In the spirit of making 2012 the “Spectators’ Games”, there will be an homage to the 1984 LA opening ceremony, where a man wearing a jet pack flew around the olympic stadium. In London, there will be remote controlled helicopters with cameras, and spectators will be able to download an app that shows them a helicopter-eye-view of the stadium on their iPhones.
Prediction: If it works, prepare to see amazing images of thousands of spectators looking at their iPhones.
Idea: the stadium will be packed full of spectators eager to be part of this historic occasion.
Reality: most of them will be stuck somewhere outside of Stratford because the tube drivers decided to go on strike.