Olympics: how do they do the national anthems at medal ceremonies?

Factual Questions
1

So we’re sitting around, watching the Olympics, and my sister-in-law the orch dork asks: who provides the recordings of the national anthems for the Olympic medal ceremonies?

Does each country provide a recording of their anthem by their symphony (or whatever group) of choice?

Does an official Olympic orchestra record each anthem for the medaling?

Does the Olympics have a stock collection of national anthem recordings?

Do they not use recordings at all, but use a live orchestra (like at the Oscars) that they just don’t show on screen?

Something else?

2

IIRC, the IOC or the corporation running the games asks the competing country’s Olympic committees to supply an anthem. If one isn’t provided, the host city Olympic corporation will commission its own recording with an orchestra.

This caused some kerfuffle during the Greek Games when the Canadian anthem was played, and people across the Great White North said “What the hell was that?”

3

:confused: What were they supposed to play if not the Canadian anthem?

4

More than one anthem at the 2004 Summer Games was changed, including Canada, the USA and New Zealand.

See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33967-2004Aug25.html

5

Two questions:

Do they bother to do this for countries that are long-shots for gold medals?

And if the country likes the newly commissioned version better than its own reference recordings, can they get a copy? :slight_smile:

6

Oh, OK. They weren’t changed, just arranged differently. I remember the rather timid arrangement of the Star Spangled Banner from the Athens games as well.

7

Are they still using the 2004 recordings for the 2006 games?

8

the arrangement that the organizers of the Athens Olympics used was so different from the normal arrangement of “O Canada” that a lot of us didn’t recognize it at first as being “O Canada”. Sucks big time if you’ve just won gold, your flag goes up, and some music comes on that you can’t recognize.

I think it was the Athens Olympic Committee that commisioned the anthems for their games. It wasn’t just the Canadian anthem that got badly mangled.

9

What’s an ‘orch dork’?

10

“Orchestra,” I presume.

11

I would assume that every Olympic Committee sends an anthem or some sheet music for itself just to be on the safe side.

Not sending a recording of your country’s anthem is a defeatist attitude.

I remember back in either 1976 or 1980, a skier representing Liechtenstein won and they had an anthem ready for her (she was highly ranked). However, Liechtenstein just used “God Save the Queen” at the time.

12

The string-and-woodwind equivalent of a band geek – an orchestra dork.

SIL described herself that way. It was the first time I heard the phrase, but I [heart] it.

13

Liechtenstein used the national anthem of Britain?? It is also the royal anthem of Norway and many Commonwealth countries, but there’s no connection between Liechtenstein’s royal family and Britain’s, that I can determine. Doubly strange since Liechtenstein doesn’t have a King or Queen, being a Principality.

14

From Wikipedia:

Oben am jungen Rhein (Up above the young Rhine) is the national anthem of Liechtenstein. It is sung to same tune as the United Kingdom national anthem, God Save the Queen. The lyrics were written in 1850 by Jakob Josef Jauch. Until 1963, the lead line was “Oben am deutschen Rhein” (“Up above the German Rhine”).

15

Usually it just gets lots in the paperwork, or the Committee replies “Use what the last group used…”
Your country’s OC is more concerned with getting its athletes to the Games, after all.