Oslo already has, with the Winter Games in '52. Opening ceremonies were simpler then, but there was at least one first: the first Olympic flame in modern times! Yes, really. The tradition didn’t start until the Olympics were over a half-century old.
More recently, of course, the Winter Games were held at Lillehammer, a small city not far north of here. The themes for their opening ceremonies appeared to be a combination of Norwegian folklore and promoting the country as the spiritual home of winter sports. And they brought the torch into the stadium by bringing it down the ski jump. That last part is the only thing anyone remembers.
If poor Östersund in Sweden ever gets to host the games, their ceremonies should be a tribute to the virtue of patience, patience, patience
Erm, make that “the tradition didn’t start FOR THE WINTER GAMES until THE MODERN OLYMPIC MOVEMENT was over half a century old.” Excuse previous brain fart.
All I know is if Chicago hosted the Olympics (which Mayor Daley has been talking about in recent weeks, incidentally, yikes) there would be some sort of bribery scandal that would put Salt Lake City to shame. When it comes to corruption and graft, we’re number one!
I know you’re in South Carolina (Columbia perhaps, with a shot at USC?) but I never understood how they convinced people that a good place to be was Atlanta (and most of Georgia for that matter) in the summer.
Not true! I remember the trolls, or the gnomes, or whatever the hell they were.
And the Lapps and the reindeer.
Just heard the other day that Philly is thinking of bidding on the '12 summer games – we’d have Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross chowing down on cheesesteaks.
My hometown did host the games. Calgary in 1988. They had Heidi (Hidy?) and Howdy, for some strange reason. Howdy is a common phrase around Stampede time, but I don’t know why they were weird bear-like things.
I also just want to say that it was a very exciting time. My best friend Tina and I spent every evening downtown to watch the medal ceremonies and just be around all of the people from around the world who had converged on our little city. An ‘uncle’ of mine was the interpreter for the Austrian bobsled (or was it luge?) team, so we got to meet them. We exchanged Olympic pins with people from all over the world. We saw well-known figure skaters at a gay bar where we used to go dancing all the time. We met athletes and millionaires and regular folk from everywhere around the world. I even met Prince Albert of Monaco! It was a very memorable time in my teenaged life.
I was living in Manchester when they held the Commonwealth Games. The opening ceremony included a parade of Morris Minors. The uniform for volunteers included a flat cap. Seriously.
Beijing should be a hoot too. Suspended particulate about 500,000 parts per million, average July temps 87 Deg. Oh well, couldn’t be worse than Athens.
I don’t know what Vancouver has planned- dance of the panhandlers? Tribute to the $5.95 sushi lunch special?
Back in the early-mid 90s some local business groups mounted a serious official pitch for San Juan to get the '04 games. The one and only possible reason I can come up with that does not involve a bad drug trip is that they figured on a Moon-Landing-Program Type “investment driver” that would force SJ to get cleaned up, the infrastructure replaced and updated, and the “attractions” available in the Island upgraded in scale and style, by the deadline… with beaucoup contracts for themselves and their friends to make it so.
Considering that they almost certainly were NOT expecting to risk their own cash, but to have the PR taxpayer and even the USAmerican taxpayer* subsidize and guarantee the whole shebang, I am glad the whole thing fizzled.
(*Since PR is a US “commonwealth”, quite a few issues would come under Fed jurisdiction)
SJ hosted the 1979 PanAm games very succesfully. However, 25 years do not pass in vain, and the event is of an entirely different scale.
