Have taken some grief for picking on Vancouver opening ceremony too much, while at the same time praising others.
Well, here’s a change of pace.
There are many things I loved about the London opening ceremony, including the spoof with the Queen and James Bond, David Beckham on the river, Mr. Bean and Chariots of Fire and of course, Paul McCartney.
But there were two major happenings that turned me off and ultimately sent me to sleep.
One is not the fault of the local committee. This beauty is an IOC challenge and it needs to be fixed by the next Summer Olympics (no worry, not enough teams in the Winters).
The parade of athletes brought a very good night to a dead halt. The BBC broadcasters did a first-rate job at filling the time, but lot to say when more than 200 countries paraded through.
Ceremony directors were pulling out their hair as the parade of athletes lasted more than 1 1/2 hours.
Now here is one for LOCOG.
Could you not have picked one big name to be the last with the torch. Choosing seven teenagers at the end was a classic lunch-bag letdown at the completion of a good night.
Remember Ali in Atlanta (the only good thing about that Olympics)?
This smacked of the organizers unable to make up their mind on which British star to honour.
Enough said. Let’s get started.
Categories: Olympics
