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Ceremonies on UTube, Pt 2


baron-pierreIV

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and I've only seen Queen Sofia only appear in Barcelona and Atlanta. Don't know if she went to Sydney as well, and/or showed up for Lillehammer, Salt Lake, Torino or Vancouver. But she showed up for RSA WOrld Cup 2010 finals.

She went to Athens and is going to London.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Whatever there was of LA 1984 has been apparently pulled. Still waiting for the full OC of that to view for the first time since back then. Maybe I'll check later when I have more time.

Oh yeah, don't forget back in Montreal's time there was Quebec's Quiet Revolution/separtist issue going on during the 1970s that went on until mid-1990s when that province was undergoing the transformation from English dominance to the French majority taking charge with, among other things, fearful businesses like even the iconic Bank of Montreal pulling up stakes and moving to Toronto.

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Whatever there was of LA 1984 has been apparently pulled.

You mean this clip? Yes, it has been taken down by the user himself, though.

Parts of the preparations and the rehearsal of the LA 1984 closing ceremony:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD4uzLFQNyg

You can still view the compilation of the different LA 1984 opening ceremony clips which was done by that opening ceremony database guy:

http://bryanpinkall.blogspot.de/2012/07/1984-summer-olympic-opening-ceremony.html

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Thanks Olympian2004. That was what I was referring to. Still, what we now got will have to do until we all get the more complete version when that arrives, something that I haven't seen since it was aired on ABC back in 1984.

Apparently, that Montreal Opening Ceremony was a clean worldwide feed because of the lack of commentary in it. Much of the Parade of Nations is absent serves as my beef in what is offered. But this is the first time many here have seen the Montreal one, including myself, more or less in its entirety. I only saw over the years brief shots of it on TV, especially when ABC was showing those clips back when it was the American Olympic Network. I take that it was made in production with the CBC/SRC and submitted to be televised clean with no non-venue audio worldwide so that other nations' sportscasters can add theirs.

Now heading a further four years back to Balanced Australia's installments of the Moscow 1980 Opening Ceremony televised by Australia's Seven Network. Balanced Australia resumes to the still heavily-missing Parade of Nations, "back to the real thing" he says at 3:41, with the united Yugoslavians, several months after Tito's death, marching (though you don't see their placard and flagbearer) then the Jamaicans as the last team in before the hosts Soviets arrive. Much more of a sedate reception compared to subsequent OCs for hosts but with louder applause naturally for the Soviets. More installments are forthcoming.

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Balanced Australia has already uploaded parts 6 and 7:

In part 7 one can see the flag handover from Montreal to Moscow for the first time on Youtube. For some reason that segment was cut out of the original Russian TV footage that was posted on Youtube years ago. And it's interesting to see how low-key that segment was, without any dance performances and only with some Moscow children handing out flowers.

Furthermore, it's interesting that they played the Soviet anthem twice at the ceremony: First, after the arrival of Leonid Brezhnev and secondly, after the Olympic Oath. Lillehammer and, I believe, also Seoul also played their national anthems after the oath - and I don't know why, such a national symbol doesn't actually fit with an universal symbol like the Olympic Oath.

And the sight of those goose-stepping athletes with the Olympic Flag respectively with doves clenched with their hands still gives me the creeps

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You beat me to it. I was planning on adding those two parts today. I decided not to do it last night due to the two media links per post policy. What we see in the Russian one from Channel One (you'll notice its logo bug on the upper right hand corner when it's shown) tends to focus more on the pagentry and artistry rather than the Olympic protocol save for the flame. It's good to see the flag handover from Montreal to Moscow for the first time on YouTube with Stephane Prefontaine and Sandra Henderson (the announcer used the wrong last name in her case) in the place of Montreal's legendary mayor Jean Drapeau, who honored the Canadian boycott by not attending, bringing it over to Moscow mayor Vladimir Promyslov via Lord Killanin with the kids giving the future husband and wife bundles of flowers and the Moscow pennants. If it were to be done now, it would be more elaborate, lavish, and more made-for-TV.

It's also nice to see in part 7 footage of the late Nikolai Andrianov, the Soviet gymnastics legend, reciting the Athlete's Oath. But notice he touches the Soviet flag (or is that one of those Moscow banners?) rather than handling the Olympic one. A fleeting shot of Andrianov was there on the Russian replay but wasn't recited before cross-wiping and entirely omitting wrestling judge Alexander Medved's. Makes you wonder if the IOC added a provision since that in those situations they MUST touch the Olympic rings beside it reminding everyone that it's about the universal Olympic values and an Olympic event. The replaying of the Soviet anthem immediately after the oath, albeit shorter, no singing, and more standard, playing for international sports, was interestingly strange. I need to see the Lillehammer and Seoul ones again to see what you're talking about as far as anthems go.

I remember seeing the footage of the suits carrying Olympic rings and clutching the doves with their white gloves years ago on 60 Muinutes. I also recall seeing there the goose-stepping of tracksuit wearing male Soviet athletes carrying the hammer and sickle into Lenin Stadium during that. I too get some chills about the sight of those blank-faced goose-steppers carrying the flag and pigeons. Communism, in this style of practice shown here back then, was akin to being a perverse form of fascism. I read that under Brezhnev the Soviet Union was dangerously on the verge of economic collapse during his era and even more so as time went on with the Soviet Red Army already in Afghanistan.

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bringing it over to Moscow mayor Vladimir Promyslov via Lord Killanin with the kids giving the future husband and wife bundles of flowers and the Moscow pennants.

It's an old Olympic myth that Sandra Henderson and Stéphane Préfontaine got married later. In fact, that never happened.

But notice he touches the Soviet flag (or is that one of those Moscow banners?) rather than handling the Olympic one. ... Makes you wonder if the IOC added a provision since that in those situations they MUST touch the Olympic rings beside it reminding everyone that it's about the universal Olympic values and an Olympic event.

It's the Soviet Flag indeed and they always used the host nation's flag for the Olympic Oath right until the Moscow Games. LA 1984 and maybe also Sarajevo 1984 were the first Games that used the Olympic Flag for the oath. It was another strange thing, just like the fact that the handover took place at the opening ceremony of the new Games and not at the closing ceremony of the previous Games until LA 1984. Why do you take the Olympic Oath with a national symbol in your hand? I don't know what was the idea behind that.

You can see, for example, Heidi Schüller taking the oath in Munich in 1972 touching a German flag held by the German team's flagbearer Detlef Lewe (at 36:30):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDZIA9b3Pbo&feature=relmfu

I remember seeing the footage of the suits carrying Olympic rings and clutching the doves with their white gloves years ago on 60 Muinutes. I also recall seeing there the goose-stepping of tracksuit wearing male Soviet athletes carrying the hammer and sickle into Lenin Stadium during that. I too get some chills about the sight of those blank-faced goose-steppers carrying the flag and pigeons. Communism, in this style of practice shown here back then, was akin to being a perverse form of fascism. I read that under Brezhnev the Soviet Union was dangerously on the verge of economic collapse during his era and even more so as time went on with the Soviet Red Army already in Afghanistan.

That's true. And that's probably one of the reasons why I got a chill from that Moscow opening ceremony footage so far. It exudes such a cold atmosphere, and the fact that so many countries were missing from the parade of nations or marched into the stadium with only a sole representative (like the UK did) and with an Olympic Flag instead of their national flag wasn't helpful either for creating a festive atmosphere.

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Thank you for finding this - I always waited to see that. And what a pathetic video it is - not pathetic for Helen Sharman, but for the organisers.

I mean, what kind of torch was that? It looks like as if they only had some pieces of coal in the top of the torch. I've never seen a torch before which you could literally empty out.

Two important lessons for Games' organisers from that video:

1) Always have a torch fuelled by a stream of gas so that it can't be emptied out if a torchbearer stumbles;

2) always have a back-up flame near, even during the final leg of the cauldron - in order to spare your final torchbearer the embarrassment to keep running with an extinguished torch and in order to spare yourself the embarrassment of revealing that you have an automatic lighter in your cauldron anyway.

EDIT: even during the final leg of the torch relay

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Video of torchbearer tripping and putting the flame out during 1991 World Student Games in Sheffield

.

Thanks for that, Aphrodite. Have been wanting to see that 'fabled' moment for so long now. It's not as bad as I thought (the tripping moment)...but it seemed like a total joke afterwards. Running with a 'dead' torch :blink: ; and then faking the 'lighting' with a big grin. "Clueless' was the first word that came to mind as one watched Sharman running up that dark hill WITHOUT a flame! :wacko:

Lesson: Who needs to go to Olympia to get the flame, any flame, when you can just light it any old way? Come to think of it, who needs the runners and the lighters as well. This lighting just proves them all useless. :lol:

Here is something else...the "Collecting" of the 2010 Asian Games flame on the Great Wall of China...

Edited by baron-pierreIV
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Also a "classy" clip. The commentator can be heard sneezing when the "high priestess" (or whatever they call them there in China) dips the torch into the mirror, he claims that the torch has already lit up although it's clear to see it hasn't and he also claims that the Olympic Flame is always collected in Athens (as opposed to Olympia) and then relayed around the world (not knowing that the global torch relays had already been scrapped by the IOC for a long time by then). They couldn't find any good commentators, could they? ;)

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Somebody in Youtube has uploaded the whole opening and closing ceremonies of the 1983 Pan American Games, which were celebrated at my hometown of Caracas. Back when we were in a much better situation than today (how I wish those days were back...)

They copied the Moscow 1980 model (like most ceremonies did back then) but it still had some memorable moments

Some curious facts: They used the Montreal 1976 version of the Olympic Anthem on it and the olympic flag was raised by Samaranch himself (and it also had wrong proportions :lol: )

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Here is something else...the "Collecting" of the 2010 Asian Games flame on the Great Wall of China...

Good God, what a kitsch made-in-China copy of the ceremony in Olympia... And the poor priestess even sighed in relief after the flame finally decided to do its part.

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