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This is an account of life in an Olympic city. Capturing the final preparations before the Opening Ceremony as well as the Games themselves.
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Final thoughts on the Opening Ceremony
I have had some sleep and now I am gathering my thoughts on what happened last night.
I watched some TV and some sites to see what the World has to say. I would also like to thank the people who sent me emails with their thoughts. It will be really worth it if more people published comments on this blog on what they thought of the Ceremony, what their likes/dislikes and what they thought was different from previous ones.
The good thing is that the Kenderis/Thanou debacle has been forgotten by the stunning Ceremony. People here are beginning to be angry at their antics (the scale is tipping), more on that on Monday.
For those surprised on why Portugal received the loudest cheer.... it is simple: Portugal were the hosts of Euro2004 which happened only a month ago and which was won by Greece. Despite beating the Portuguese twice in their home ground, the second time in the final, they applauded the Greek team and the fans. Every single of the 20,000 Greek fans that went to Portugal was impressed with their warm hospitality. So it seems a new "unofficial" bonding has occurred between the two people!
Pyrros Dimas, the Greek flag bearer received also a rapturous applause as he marched around the stadium, you can tell he is a weightlifter by the way he held the flag...single handendly! A note on the CNN's coverage, that said that he is of Albanian decent and Greece is his new adopted country.... what a load of crap! He is from the Greek minority of Southern Albania and was able to come to Greece when the Albanian immigration ban was lifted in the beginning of the '90s.
I nearly forgot, Turkey also received a warm welcome, it was a very pleasant surprise! It seems that the Olympic spirit is on us!
Before the start of the main Ceremony and sometime into the parade of nations (somewhere around "S") people started doing the Mexican wave (or Ola as I think it is called). It was good fun! even my parents got excited about it!
A few words on logistics around the stadium:
VERY IMPRESSIVE. Believe me I have seen my fair share of large sporting events and music festivals, and I have not seen something so organised!
They had promised that the Olympic bus lines will run every 2.5 minutes.... they lied... it was something like 30 seconds! Despite the massive number that used them the queues were fairly short because of the number of buses scheduled.
Crowd control was very good, loads on volunteers, of all ages, with loudspeakers directing people to the exits and the transportation points.
The sponsor presence was not as bad as I thought, maybe this is because of the vastness of the place... that their kiosks and stalls got lost! Still we picked some nifty Samsung sun hats!
I watched some TV and some sites to see what the World has to say. I would also like to thank the people who sent me emails with their thoughts. It will be really worth it if more people published comments on this blog on what they thought of the Ceremony, what their likes/dislikes and what they thought was different from previous ones.
The good thing is that the Kenderis/Thanou debacle has been forgotten by the stunning Ceremony. People here are beginning to be angry at their antics (the scale is tipping), more on that on Monday.
For those surprised on why Portugal received the loudest cheer.... it is simple: Portugal were the hosts of Euro2004 which happened only a month ago and which was won by Greece. Despite beating the Portuguese twice in their home ground, the second time in the final, they applauded the Greek team and the fans. Every single of the 20,000 Greek fans that went to Portugal was impressed with their warm hospitality. So it seems a new "unofficial" bonding has occurred between the two people!
Pyrros Dimas, the Greek flag bearer received also a rapturous applause as he marched around the stadium, you can tell he is a weightlifter by the way he held the flag...single handendly! A note on the CNN's coverage, that said that he is of Albanian decent and Greece is his new adopted country.... what a load of crap! He is from the Greek minority of Southern Albania and was able to come to Greece when the Albanian immigration ban was lifted in the beginning of the '90s.
I nearly forgot, Turkey also received a warm welcome, it was a very pleasant surprise! It seems that the Olympic spirit is on us!
Before the start of the main Ceremony and sometime into the parade of nations (somewhere around "S") people started doing the Mexican wave (or Ola as I think it is called). It was good fun! even my parents got excited about it!
A few words on logistics around the stadium:
VERY IMPRESSIVE. Believe me I have seen my fair share of large sporting events and music festivals, and I have not seen something so organised!
They had promised that the Olympic bus lines will run every 2.5 minutes.... they lied... it was something like 30 seconds! Despite the massive number that used them the queues were fairly short because of the number of buses scheduled.
Crowd control was very good, loads on volunteers, of all ages, with loudspeakers directing people to the exits and the transportation points.
The sponsor presence was not as bad as I thought, maybe this is because of the vastness of the place... that their kiosks and stalls got lost! Still we picked some nifty Samsung sun hats!
Comments:
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I watched the coverage from Thai TV and here are my comments as promised. I was very impressed by the ceremony, it looked extremely professional and not tacky at all. The lake was very photogenic as where the little torches held up by the spectators. I don't know what the Thai commentators were saying (in between shuffling their papers to find the next bit they were supposed to read) but they had obviously been given a script (I caught a mention to Kolokotronis and bits of descriptions of countries, e.g. the continent they are in). On the TV coverage Cyprus sounded like they got a warm welcome as well as Iraq. USA also got a loud cheer but mainly from the Americans there (the Greek spectators shown looked distinctly stone-faced) Other various random observations: did anyone notice that the Afganistan flag bearer was a woman? Hopefully, it signifies a real change in the country's attitude and not just a PR trick. On the other hand how conspicuous was the lack of women from some of the Arab states? Oh, and the 2 Koreas with one team?
Watching some random American channel this morning (not CNN or one of the other big ones) and the main focus was the doping and the security, no mention of the opening ceremony. They also said that their athletes have been told how to compete in front of 'hostile Anti-American crowds'.
Watching some random American channel this morning (not CNN or one of the other big ones) and the main focus was the doping and the security, no mention of the opening ceremony. They also said that their athletes have been told how to compete in front of 'hostile Anti-American crowds'.
# posted by 
: 2:57 pm
: 2:57 pm
I watched the coverage from Thai TV and here are my comments as promised. I was very impressed by the ceremony, it looked extremely professional and not tacky at all. The lake was very photogenic as where the little torches held up by the spectators. I don't know what the Thai commentators were saying (in between shuffling their papers to find the next bit they were supposed to read) but they had obviously been given a script (I caught a mention to Kolokotronis and bits of descriptions of countries, e.g. the continent they are in). On the TV coverage Cyprus sounded like they got a warm welcome as well as Iraq. USA also got a loud cheer but mainly from the Americans there (the Greek spectators shown looked distinctly stone-faced) Other various random observations: did anyone notice that the Afganistan flag bearer was a woman? Hopefully, it signifies a real change in the country's attitude and not just a PR trick. On the other hand how conspicuous was the lack of women from some of the Arab states? Oh, and the 2 Koreas with one team?
Watching some random American channel this morning (not CNN or one of the other big ones) and the main focus was the doping and the security, no mention of the opening ceremony. They also said that their athletes have been told how to compete in front of 'hostile Anti-American crowds'.
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Watching some random American channel this morning (not CNN or one of the other big ones) and the main focus was the doping and the security, no mention of the opening ceremony. They also said that their athletes have been told how to compete in front of 'hostile Anti-American crowds'.
# posted by : 3:29 pm
: 3:29 pm<< Home
