With a little British pomp and a lot of British pop, London brought the curtain down on a glorious Olympic Games on Sunday in a spectacular, technicolor pageant of landmarks, lightshows and lots of fun.
The closing ceremony offered a sensory blast, including rock ’n’ roll rickshaws, dustbin percussionists, an exploding yellow car, and a marching band in red tunics and bearskin hats.
The Spice Girls staged a show-stopping reunion, and Monty Python’s Eric Idle sauntered through Always Look on the Bright Side of Life — accompanied by Roman centurions, Scottish bagpipers and a human cannonball.
Photo: AFP
It all made for a psychedelic mashup that had 80,000 fans at the Olympic Stadium stomping, cheering and singing along. Organizers estimated 300 million or more were watching around the world.
What a way to end a Games far more successful than many Londoners expected. Security woes were overcome and traffic nightmares never materialized. The weather held up, more or less, and British athletes overachieved.
It all came with a price tag of US$14 billion — three times the original estimate — but nobody wanted to spoil the fun with such mundane concerns, at least not on this night.
Photo: AFP
“We lit the flame and we lit up the world,” London organizing committee chief Sebastian Coe said. “When our time came, Britain, we did it right.”
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge declared the Olympics over with praise for the athletes.
“Through your commitment to fair play, your respect for opponents and your grace in defeat, as well as in victory, you have earned the right to be called Olympians,” he said. “These were happy and glorious Games.”
Photo: AFP
However, the night was about splash more than speeches.
Festive and fast-moving, the ceremony opened with pop bands Madness, the Pet Shop Boys and One Direction, a shout-out to former British prime minister Winston Churchill and a tribute to the Union Jack — the floor of the Olympic Stadium was arranged to resemble the British flag.
Monochrome recreations of London’s landmarks were covered in newsprint, from Big Ben’s clock tower and Tower Bridge to the London Eye ferris wheel and the chubby high-rise building known as the “Gherkin.”
Photo: AFP
Street percussion group Stomp built the noise into a frenzy and dancers brandished brooms, in a nod to the spontaneous popular movement to clean up London after riots shook neighborhoods not far from the Olympic Stadium just a year ago.
Liam Gallagher performed Wonderwall, a 1990s hit by his former band Oasis, Muse rocked the house with the hard-edged -Olympic -anthem Survival and Queen guitarist Brian May was joined by singer Jessie J for a crowd-pleasing We Will Rock You.
The headline performers were each paid £1 (US$1.57).
Photo: Reuters
The night ended with the extinguishing of the multi-petaled Olympic cauldron and a supercharged rendition of My Generation and other classics by The Who that had the crowd dancing in the aisles. Confetti rained down and fireworks lit up the sky.
Prince William’s wife, Kate, and Prince Harry took seats next to Rogge. They sang along to God Save the Queen, but there was no sign of the queen herself, who made a memorable mock parachute entrance at the July 27 opening ceremony.
Following Olympic tradition, the 10,800 athletes of the London Games marched in as one rather than with their nations, symbolizing the harmony and friendship inspired by the Games.
As the crowd cheered their heroes and flashbulbs rippled through the stadium, the Olympians cheered back, some carrying national flags, others snapping photographs with smartphones and cameras.
They held hands, embraced and carried each other on their shoulders, finally forming a human mosh pit on the field.
The ceremony had something for everyone, from tween girls to 1960s hippies. The face of John Lennon appeared on the stadium floor, assembled by 101 fragments of sculpture, and just as quickly gave way to George Michael, Fatboy Slim and Annie Lennox.
Eight minutes were turned over to Brazil, hosts of the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, which delivered an explosion of samba, sequins and Latin cool. Following tradition, the London Mayor Boris Johnson handed the Olympic flag over to his Rio counterpart.
Britons, who had fretted for weeks that the Games would become a fiasco, were buoyed by their biggest medal haul since 1908 — 29 golds and 65 medals in all.
The US edged China in both the gold medal and total medals standings, eclipsing their best performance at an Olympics on foreign soil after the “Dream Team” narrowly held off Spain in basketball for the country’s 46th gold.
While the Games may have lacked some of the grandeur of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, there were more than a few unforgettable moments.
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt became an Olympic legend by repeating as champion in both the 100m 200m sprints. Michael Phelps ended his long career as the most decorated Olympian in history.
British distance runner Mo Farah became a national treasure by sweeping the 5,000m and 10,000m races and favorite daughter Jessica Ennis became a global phenomenon with her victory in the heptathlon.
Female athletes took center stage in a way they never had before.
US gymnast Gabby Douglas soared to gold, the US soccer team made a dramatic march to the championship. Packed houses turned out to watch the new event of women’s boxing and women competed for Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei for the first time.
Then there was Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee from South Africa running on carbon-fiber blades, who did not win a medal, but nonetheless left a champion, while sprinter Manteo Mitchell completed his leg of the 4x400m relay semi-final with a broken leg, allowing his team to qualify and win silver.
Britons seemed exhausted and exhilarated after two glorious weeks in the world’s spotlight, and just months after the country celebrated the queen’s 60th year on the throne with a magnificent pageant and street parties.
Some at the Olympic Park acknowledged the happy surprise that not much had gone wrong and so much had gone right.
“I was a bit worried we wouldn’t be able to live up to it, but walking around here it’s just unbelievable,” Phil Akrill of Chichester said.
Even non-Britons were proud of their adopted homeland.
“It’s just been a really nice thing to see,” said Anja Ekelof, a Swede who now lives in Scotland. “The whole country has come together.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique