My thoughts of the Olympic Opening Ceremony

I’m rather delighted and surprised by Jon for writing a detailed account of watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony. Bravo Jon! I asked him today to email me what he thought about the Opening Ceremony and I expected only a short sentence or two as he was busy preparing for a visit from his mother.  To celebrate the Olympics, Jon and I have decided to blog about the Olympics, particularly on our favourite events: swimming, wrestling, gymnastics, BMX and many more. We are also betting on our favourite events too, trading songs between each other. So later on, you’ll see a list created on what we’re betting on. We have an extensive list and I wish we could do more but August is a busy month for us. We both enjoy the Olympics even without gambling but we thought we might do something new and hopefully it will be fun for us. This is the first Olympics that we are watching together.

I love it when it’s Olympic year! I usually don’t watch a lot of sport but I always make an effort to watch most Olympic events due to the positive atmosphere and excitement in watching the matches and sessions.  During the Olympics, I watch any sport that happens to be on tv, right now I am watching cycling and before I was watching women’s butterfly.

My favourite event of the Olympics is the Opening Ceremony. I got up at 4:55am to watch the games, although I found out that the games were starting at 5:30am Australian time so I was annoyed at myself for getting up earlier.  Jon wanted to watch it with me but he found out that the American broadcast of the event would be happening much later.

I enjoyed the London Opening Ceremony. I’m glad their Opening Ceremony didn’t begin with a little child being lead across the land by a spirit to learn the history of the country. Ever since, the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, I have seen a lot other sporting events start with the same premise (not that there’s anything wrong with it, nor do I know if Sydney was the first to come up with it) but it’s nice to see something original.

I was surprised when the show started off with the Industrial Revolution because I had expected that they would start much earlier as Britain is an old country. Danny Boyle, director of the movies 127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire was the Artistic Director of the Opening Ceremony and I rather liked his influence, the punchy music selections and how the history of Britain was told in fun and modern way. 

There were a number of parts of the show that I really enjoyed. As a Harry Potter fan, I was delighted seeing J.K Rowling play a part in the show, as well as the huge puppet of Voldemort and  I liked how Kenneth Branagh played Isambard Kingdom Brunel (a major influencer of the Industrial Revolution).

Also, I liked Chariots of Fire bit as I had not expected Rowan Atkinson to be there. I believe he played the role of Mr Bean, a tv show that I love (I don’t think Jon is acquainted with the Mr Bean series so I think I’ll get him a copy of the dvds). Anyway, it was great seeing Mr Bean become resentful that he only had to play one note on the piano whereas the other piano player had a bigger role and resort to unusual means during the Chariot of Fire scene when the athletes are running along the beach.  That’s typical Bean.

In addition, I loved (yeah I say love a lot) how the Queen made her acting debut and it was hilarious that she and James Bond jumped out of the helicopter. Her majesty is cool; I applaud her sense of humour.

My next favourite part of the Opening Ceremony is when the athletes come out. It was rather quicker than I expected and Jon made a good point about the music being an influence on keeping energy levels up and the pace of the athletes. I always love seeing what outfits the athletes would be in. I thought this year, that the outfits were not as outlandish as it has been in some other years. I saw more athletes dressed in blazers or tracksuits.

The speeches afterwards were shorter than I expected, maybe it was just me but I think past Olympics the speeches have been longer. Not that I was unhappy at the duration of speeches. I also love the pledging of the officials, athletes and coaches to have a fair and drug free Olympics. What an honour it must be to pledge on behalf of everyone involved in the games.

Lastly I thought the lighting of the Olympic Cauldron was not as spectacular as I had seen in other games. I might be biased but the coolest Olympic Cauldron lighting happened in 2000 with Cathy Freeman.

I hope you guys enjoy the games. The games are an excellent time to socialise with friends and family.