It's been a fantastic 2012 Olympics. Faint memories of the 2008: Fantastic opening: esp the 'giant footprints' fireworks leading up to the stadium for the grand opening.
This 2012: the start was pleasantly surprisingly good! The start from the 'birth' of Thames river, to lead into the stadium, decked in Shakespearean era and folklore, evolution into the industrial age with the forging of the final Olympic ring before being lifted to merge with 4 other rings to form the iconic symbol. Notable acts include Mr Bean with Sir Simon Rattle conducting the London Symphonic Orchestra playing 'Chariots of Fire', the 1980s theme song which became any athlete's anthem. The British humour of introducting Queen with a skit with James Bond leading the Queen onto a helicopter in Buckingham palace with 2 dogs, and the Queen + Bond parachutting into the stadium! The Olympic torch is also very innovative with 200+ individual torches coming together to form a giant caldron. The individual torches were to be given to each participating country after the games. Lastly, Paul McCartney with perhaps the most popular sing-along song, of Hey Jude, to end the opening...
The sports. Swimming began first, and the legend Phelps didn't seem to be able to do a '2008', but he did became the most be-medalled athlete of all time, so kudos to him. Memory swims include the young Ye Shiwen, a 16 year old beating the OR at the 200m IM, even faster than Lochte's time in the final 50meters in the equivalent event. I was in China over a week and Sun Yang's wines is the 400m and 1500m were replayed a 1000 times and hailed a national hero over and over. Singapore's swimmers were crap though. period.
Athletics: The 'core' of the Olympics, to run faster, jump higher, throw further. It's always great to watch this, without the aid of bicycles, racquets, balls, horses!?, boats etc to distract one from the pure physical form. Notable was the triple jump's record at 18.26m by Jonathan Edwards etched in 1995 or Mike Power's 8.95 in the long jump. The past 2-3 generations of jumpers are NOWHERE near such records. It's utterly amazing! Other notable Athletics events include Liu Xiang's famous first hurdle fall, and I watched it live in China, and the crowd in the restaurant were like 'argh!!' and you know something went really bad. Hours of coverage followed over the next few days, interviewing his coach, family, doctors, fellow chinese sportsmen and so on. Also, for Mo Farah's 5000m and 10000m twin long distance win for GBR, a great celebration for him. Finally, the fastest showman in the world, Usain Bolt. I watched both 100m and 200m live in 2008 but didn't manage to get it, and he deserves every respect, arrogance and all!! Bask in his glory, for we may never see another Bolt in our life time.
Other notable events is how graceful Synchronized swimming and Rhythmic gymnastics can be. It's watching a performance.
The closing was a big Brit-Music concert, notable including Spice girls, Queen and John Lennon literally Singing Imagine. Imagine no countries, living life in peace..
Oh, there's 33 candles on the cake today. Not feeling too well. Thanks to all for the well-wishes.
