London 2012 Olympics: day one – live! - The Guardian
Kim Willsher, our Paris correspondent, has had a good read of the French newspapers. "There was lots of play on 'So British', a well-worn and rather cliched phrase used by French," she reports. This is what they thought of the opening ceremony:
L'Equipe, sports newspaper
"To offer a morsel of bravery with the bombastic music from the film Chariots of Fire, but to then turn it into humour thanks to Mr Bean; to show the Queen of England, as herself, but then to show her parachuting above the stadium; to set up immense scenes paying homage to the NHS. The organisers of the London Games succeeded on Friday evening in creating enthusiasm with an opening ceremony that took the classic from such events and had fun with them."
LE PARISIEN, daily newspaper
"So British … an opening ceremony that was magnificent, inventive and offbeat drawing, heavily on the roots of British identity". Elsewhere they described the ceremony as "magistrale" (majestic/masterful)
LE POINT, weekly news magazine
"London opens the Games of sport, music and humour … The magnificent opening ceremony from Danny Boyle was a huge success"
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR, weekly news magazine
"Eccentricity and imagination – so British!" They said the ceremony was "defined by the economic crisis" and "the unleashed imagination of Danny Boyle".
LIBERATION, daily newspaper
"Humour so British for the Olympic Games opening ceremony … London: the flip-side of the medal: The Olympic Games started Friday evening in the British capital where financial, security and advertising practises have already drawn criticism."
LE FIGARO
"Royal opening for the Olympic Games in London … Danny Boyle Master of Ceremonies"
EUROPE 1 Television
They described it as "a Rock and Royal ceremony". "Danny Boyle was a breath of fresh air for the ceremony … which did not disappoint." They said Boyle's spectacular had shown "how to reconcile sport and business, tradition and modernity, the past and the future".
Sport.fr
"A few hours before the Olympic Games opening ceremony, London succeeded in putting on its best clothes. But if the passion is certainly present in the English capital, the problems of transport and security persist and led to questions before the start of the competition. 'We suffer, but we understand,' Bernard Amsalem, head of the French Olympic mission admitted."
London transport passes its first big test - Financial Times
Last updated: July 28, 2012 12:45 pm
London opens with pageant for next generation - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - The Queen declared the London Olympics open after playing a cameo role in a dizzying ceremony designed to highlight the grandeur and eccentricities of the nation that invented modern sport.
Children's voices intertwining from the four corners of her United Kingdom ushered in an exuberant historical pageant of meadows, smokestacks and digital wizardry before an audience of 60,000 in the Olympic Stadium and a probable billion television viewers around the globe.
Many of them gasped at the sight of the 86-year-old queen, marking her Diamond Jubilee this year, putting aside royal reserve in a video where she stepped onto a helicopter with James Bond actor Daniel Craig to be carried aloft from Buckingham Palace.
A film clip showed doubles of her and Bond skydiving towards the stadium and, moments later, she made her entrance in person.
"In a sense, the Olympic Games are coming home tonight," IOC President Jacques Rogge told the crowd.
"This great, sports-loving country is widely recognised as the birthplace of modern sport."
To underline the point, Bradley Wiggins, crowned five days earlier as Britain's first winner of the Tour de France and hoping to add more road cycling gold in London, tolled the world's largest tuned bell to begin the ceremony.
In one moment of simple drama, the stadium fell silent as five giant, incandescent Olympic rings, symbolically forged from British steel mills, were lifted serenely out of the stadium by weather balloons, destined for the stratosphere.
And at the climax of an evening that had children centre-stage, seven teenage athletes were given the honour of lighting the Olympic cauldron that will burn for the duration of the Games, in keeping with the theme of "Inspire a Generation".
ARAB SPRING
More than 10,000 athletes from 204 countries will compete in 26 sports over 17 days of competition in the only city to have staged the modern Games three times.
Most of them were there for the traditional alphabetical parade of the national teams, not least the athletes from Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen competing in their first Olympics since their peoples overthrew autocrats in Arab Spring revolutions.
Brunei and Qatar were led in by their countries' first ever female Olympians and so, along with Saudi Arabia, ended their status as the only countries to exclude women from their teams.
At a reception, the queen spelled out the role played by her family after the Olympics were revived in Athens in 1896.
"This will be the third London Olympiad. My great grandfather opened the 1908 Games at White City. My father opened the 1948 Games at Wembley Stadium. And, later this evening, I will take pleasure in declaring open the 2012 London Olympic Games at Stratford in the east of London," she said.
"Over recent months, many in these islands have watched with growing excitement the journey of the Olympic torch around the United Kingdom. As the torch has passed through villages and towns, it has drawn people together as families and communities.
"To me, this spirit of togetherness is a most important part of the Olympic ideal. And the British people can be proud of the part they have played in keeping the spirit alive."
The opening show, costing an estimated 27 million pounds ($42 million), was inspired by William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest", his late-life meditation on age and mortality.
But it was children who set the tone, starting from the moment when live pictures of junior choirs singing in the landscapes of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were beamed into the stadium's giant screens, four traditional songs woven together into a musical tapestry of Britain.
Oscar-winning film director Danny Boyle began his sweep through British history by grassing over the arena in a depiction of the pastoral idyll mythologized by the romantic poet William Blake as "England's green and pleasant land".
Idyll turned swiftly to inferno as the Industrial Revolution's "dark Satanic mills" burst from the ground, before those same mills forged the last of five giant Olympic rings that rose into the sky.
At the end of a three-hour extravaganza, David Beckham, the English football icon who had helped convince the IOC to grant London the Games, stepped off a speedboat carrying the Olympic flame at the end of a torch relay that inspired many ordinary people around Britain.
Past Olympic heroes including Muhammad Ali, who lit the cauldron at the 1996 Atlanta Games, and British rower Steve Redgrave, the only person to win gold at five successive games, welcomed the flame into the stadium.
Yet it was not a celebrity but seven teenage athletes who lit a spectacular arrangement of over 200 copper 'petals' representing the participating countries, which rose up in the centre of the stadium to converge into a single cauldron.
Moments later, a balloon-borne camera relayed live pictures of the earlier-released interlocked rings gliding through the stratosphere against the curved horizon of the planet below.
VAST VIDEO SCREEN
The performance included surreal and often witty references to British achievements, especially in social reform and the arts, and ended with former Beatle Paul McCartney singing "Hey Jude".
Many sequences turned the entire stadium into a vast video screen made up of tens of thousands of "pixels" attached to the seats. One giant message, unveiled by Tim Berners-Lee, British inventor of the world wide web, read "This is for Everyone".
Until the last few days, media coverage had been dominated by the security firm G4S's admission that it could not provide enough guards for Olympic venues. Thousands of extra soldiers had to be deployed at the last minute, despite the company's multi-million-dollar contract from the government.
Suicide attacks that killed 52 people in London in July 2005, the day after it was awarded the Games, ensured that security would remain a worry. And this year the Games mark the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Munich massacre, when 11 Israeli Olympic team members were killed by Palestinian militants.
Although no medals will be awarded until Saturday, the women's football tournament started on Wednesday, and on Friday South Korean archers set the first world records of the Games.
Im Dong-hyun, who suffers from severe myopia and just aims at "a blob of yellow colour", broke his own 72-arrow world record with a score of 699 out of a possible 720, leading his two colleagues to a record combined score as well.
The Games' first medals will be decided in the women's 10 metres air rifle final on Saturday, with the big action coming in the men's cycling road race, where world champion Mark Cavendish is favourite to become Britain's first gold medallist.
In the evening, Americans Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte are scheduled to line up for a classic confrontation in the men's 400 metres individual medley final.
Phelps, competing in seven events after winning a record eight gold medals four years ago in Beijing, is bidding to become the first swimmer to win gold in the same discipline three times in a row.
"This is going to be a special race," said Gregg Troy, head coach of the American men's team. "I can't imagine a better way to promote our sport than a race like this on the first day."
(Additional reporting by Stephen Addison, Gene Cherry, Guy Faulconbridge, Vincent Fribault, Peter Griffiths, Sara Ledworth, Mike Collett-White; writing by Kevin Liffey; editing by Ossian Shine)
London 2012 Olympics: Day one's must-see moments - BBC News
Can Mark Cavendish win Great Britain's opening gold medal of the London 2012 Olympic Games?
Here are Saturday's events to watch out for (all times BST):
Full schedule available on BBC Sport website
- CYCLING (10:00-16:00): Mark Cavendish, men's road race
Cavendish, from the Isle of Man, has said he hopes to "light the fire" for the GB team over 250km of tarmac, finishing on The Mall.
The 27-year-old won last year's Olympic test event, over a shorter version of the course, and is the reigning world champion.
- SWIMMING (11:17-11:49): Hannah Miley, women's 400m individual medley
Scotland's Miley, 22, is Britain's other big medal hope on day one. She enters this event as the world silver medallist and is ranked third-fastest in the world this year, behind Elizabeth Beisel of the United States and China's Zheng Rong Rong. Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte will also be in action.
- SHOOTING (08:15-09:30 qualification, 11:00-11:20 final): First gold medal of the Games
While Cavendish has been labelled the likely candidate for GB's first gold medal, the first title to be awarded at London 2012 will be the women's 10m air rifle. Jen McIntosh is Britain's entrant, ranked 52nd in the world, with China the favourites to win.
- ARCHERY (09:00-18:26): Chance for GB men's team medal
Britain's male archers have had an impressive few months in the run-up to London 2012, led by Larry Godfrey. The 36-year-old will be part of a three-man GB entry for the men's team event at Lord's.
- ROWING (09:30-09:50): First heats at Eton Dorney
Watch out for Heather Stanning and Helen Glover in the GB women's pair, who will be among the first to race as the Olympic rowing events begin in Berkshire.
- GB TEAMS IN ACTION: All times BST
Basketball women v Australia 22:15, football women v Cameroon 17:15, handball women v Montenegro 19:30, volleyball women v Russia 14:45.
London 2012 opening ceremony wows world media - BBC News
The London 2012 Olympic Games have been officially opened with a spectacular ceremony celebrating British history, social, cultural and industrial achievements.
Film director Danny Boyle. who masterminded the ceremony at the Olympic Stadium in east London, deployed a huge cast including many ordinary Britons as well dramatic special effects.
How was the event viewed around the world?
Asia-Pacific
China's mainstream party-run and state-run media were fairly measured and gracious in their comments on an opening ceremony that, in the minds of many Chinese, was going to be a bit of an anti-climax after director Zhang Yimou's lavish ceremony in 2008.
Reporter Yi Ling Chang Ailing, of Xinhua news agency, said: "From Shakespeare to Rowling, from the industrial revolution to social networking, the British tried to tell the world - London has had influence and it will continue to influence the world."
Xinhua's Lin Yang said: "With idyllic pastoral scenes, British humour, and fantasy literature, the London Olympics opening ceremony was full of British characteristics. What lay behind these memorable parts were none other than Britain's well-developed cultural and creative industries."
Chen Chenxi, in the Communist Party People's Daily, praised the British for "thrift" and their "distinctive culture and aspirations". Chen commented, "If the Olympics opening ceremony can change from dazzling to being simple without losing warmth and from sumptuous extravagance to being calm but fully creative, it will increasingly return to the core values of the Olympic movement."
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported a "lavish opening ceremony celebrating Britain's rich history and great figures, by turns dramatic, imaginative, humorous and solemn, as thousands of performers weaved the story of the country's past, present and future".
Singapore's Straits Times said: "Britain can make and is making it a grand show. It is not merely scale but also authenticity that makes a spectacular difference."
The Australian daily praised a "glorious pandemonium devoted to London's thriving, chaotic energy, that celebrated everything from punk music to social media and the internet, deliberately revelling in the chaos of Britain's free society and popular culture in an obvious retort to the breathtaking order and intimidating precision and scale of Beijing's ceremony in 2008".
Europe
France's Le Figaro daily said the display "reminded a billion viewers of the best contributions that Britain has given to the world for over a century: its sense of humour, its music, and of course sport".
The German papers also enthused over Boyle's extravaganza. "Fire in these Games" and "Wow, what a show!" said headlines in Bild, while Die Welt said the evening party was "brought alive by lighting technology, fireworks and simple British coolness".
Americas
The Los Angeles Times said the performance was "moving, bizarre, funny and exciting, and often surprisingly dark; certainly it was never dull. It had at times a quality of seeming completely random even as one suspected that repeated viewings would reveal all sorts of connections and echoes and interior rhymes."
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation website said: "It was a rocking, rollicking, sometimes quiet and brooding ceremony that touched on pretty much every aspect of British culture and history from medieval times (what, no Battle of Hastings and Magna Carta?) to modern life."
Middle East
Commenting on the appearance of 86 year-old Queen Elizabeth, who declared the Games open, Egypt's Al-Ahram daily said: "Children's voices intertwining from the four corners of her United Kingdom ushered in an exuberant historical pageant of meadows, steel mills and megapixels."
Iranian TV was lukewarm at best, with Press TV describing the ceremony as "a light-hearted take on British history" but wondering whether the Games would be simply a "two-week of adrenalin rush for a country in deep recession with the hangover yet to come". The rolling news channel IRINN reported that the ceremony took place amid "intensive security measures".
Qatar's The Peninsula daily said London did a "spectacular job" making the opening ceremony a "memorable event". Boyle "succeeded in defining Britishness in a surreal, moving and for some, confounding affair because of the jumble of ideas and an effort to tell a thousand small stories, which may not have been understood fully by the international audience."
BBC Monitoring selects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here
London 2012 : The Queen champions Team GB on opening day of the Olympics - Daily Telegraph
The royal party also met with Kapoor and the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who largely funded the £19 million structure.
The Queen wore a royal blue silk dress with a floral print and a blue wool crepe coat by Stuart Parvin, accessorised with a matching hat by Rachel Trevor Morgan and the Flower Brooch which she was given in 1948 - the year the Olympics were last in London - to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Wales,
As she chatted to volunteers about their roles, the Queen laughed as she was congratulated about her own performance alongside Daniel Craig’s James Bond in last night’s ceremony.
Following the royal party’s tour of the Orbit, Mr Johnson said: “I’ve just been discussing the Queen’s performance last night - how much she enjoyed making her dramatic debut.”
The Queen’s first ever acting role in the Bond spoof sequence in the opening ceremony was perhaps one of the best-kept secrets of Boyle’s three-hour show.
During the five-minute film, the Queen was seen receiving Bond, played by Craig at Buckingham Palace with the words “Good evening, Mr Bond”.
She and two of her beloved corgis were then escorted by Bond to a waiting helicopter in the grounds of the Palace, after which, to the sound of the Dambusters, they seemingly flew over London to cheering crowds before appearing to be parachuted into the Olympic Stadium to the famous 007 theme tune, with the Queen’s bloomers blowing the wind.
On Saturday, details of emerged of the top secret mission to include the Queen with James Bond in the opening ceremony.
The Queen was approached by LOCOG last year with the plan and was described by royal aides as “very happy to be asked and very happy to take part”.
She is believed to have brushed aside suggestions that an actress could play her as a body double inside the Palace, insisting that she play herself.
“She was delighted to be asked to be involved in something so exceptional,” said an aide.
Boyle and his production crew visited the Palace twice in March and April this year, where they filmed scenes in the Palace’s East Corridor, East Gallery, West Terrace and in the Queen’s Audience Room in her private apartments, where she was filmed looking through her paperwork before greeting 007 dressed in black tie.
Dressing the part as a glamorous Bond girl, the Queen wore a striking outfit for her role - an embellished peach cocktail dress with a lace bodice and pleated skirt, accessorised with a headpiece with handmade porcelain flowers by the royal couturier and her personal dresser, Angela Kelly.
For continuity and to play along with the spoof, she wore the same outfit to Friday night's opening ceremony.
The Queen appears to have been something of a natural, requiring only an hour’s filming to get the director’s cut picture perfect.
Her co-stars in the film were her long-serving page, Paul Whybrew and three of her beloved corgis, Monty, Holly and Willow.
Acting as her body double climbing into the helicopter was the actress Julia Mackenzie, who played Miss Marple in the recent ITV series of Agatha Christie’s novels.
The Queen is believed to have given her personal approval to every detail of the film, including her apparent extraordinary parachute entrance to the stadium for the opening ceremony.
However, for that stunt, the Queen was happy to accept a body double. Her role was played by Gary Connery, a professional stuntman and base jumper, while Mark Sutton, a skydiver and former officer in the ghurka rifles who parachuted in as Bond.
On Saturday morning, Sir Paul McCartney, who performed Hey Jude to close the ceremony, tweeted: “didn’t realise Her Majesty was such a good parachutist!”
The Queen is understood to be a keen fan of the Bond films. She attended premieres of the films Die Another Day in 2002 and Casino Royale in 2006 and visited Pinewood Studios in 2007 where many sequences of the Bond films are made.
A royal aide said: “The Queen was approached by LOCOG to take part in 2011. She was extremely happy to be asked and very happy to take part - she enjoyed it hugely.
"The Queen she gave her approval to all of it. She has never been in a film before, and this will be a one-off.”
Other members of the Royal Family have dabbled with acting - the Prince of Wales made a cameo appearance in an episode of ITV’s Coronation Street in 2000, while the Duchess of Cornwall has appeared on The Archers on BBC Radio 4.
After visiting the Orbit, the royal party toured the Aquatics Centre where they briefly watched heats in the women’s 400 metre individual medley before meeting several volunteers for the Games.
The Acquatics Centre will host a number of royal visits over the coming weeks. On Friday, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who are ambassadors for Team GB will watch several swimming competitions.
The Duchess will also watch the synchronised swimming the following week on August 9 and the men’s 10 metre platform diving semi-final and final on August 11, where British diver Tom Daley will be hoping for a medal.
The Queen also visited the Athletes’ Village this morning, home to 23,000 athletes and officials during the Games. There, she met with athletes, volunteers and catering staff in the canteen.
She later travelled alone to London City Airport to celebrate the 25th anniversary where she met long serving staff members of the airport.
She was also introduced to Amy Marren, a Paralympian swimmer from Hornchurch, Essex, who at 13 will be one of the youngest competitors at the Paralympic Games.
Miss Marren, who was born without her right hand, holds the British records in the 200 metre backstroke and the 800 metre freestyle, will make her Paralympic debut at the Games. Her training has been sponsored by London City Airport.
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were also out to support Team GB this morning.
Shortly before 10am, the couple joined thousands of fans to cheer on the British gold medal hopeful Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins, the winner of the Tour de France, at the start of the Men’s Cycling Road Race in front of Buckingham Palace.
The couple made their way to the starting line on the Mall, where they wished a nervous-looking Cavendish and Wiggins good luck. Attempting to lighten the mood at the start line, the Duchess quipped to Wiggins: “I didn’t recognise you without your yellow jersey.”
On Sunday, the Duke of Cambridge will cheer on Zara Phillips as she competes on her horse High Kingdom in the dressage event at Greenwich Park, the first of three disciplines in the three-day eventing.
He is expected to be joined by Miss Phillips’ mother, Princess Anne, and the Duchess of Cornwall and her husband, the rugby player Mike Tindall.
Miss Phillips, who missed out on a place at the Beijing Olympics after her horse Toytown picked up an injury, is following in her parents’ Olympic footsteps by competing in the Games.
Her father, Captain Mark Phillips, who is coaching the US eventing team this year, won a team gold medal in the same competition in 1972 while her mother, competed part four years later in Montreal on the Queen’s horse, Goodwill.
The Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry will also join the Duke on Monday to watch Miss Phillips compete on Monday at the cross-country stage of the event, and on Tuesday in the show-jumping.
If Team GB finish in the top three, Miss Phillips will be presented a medal by her mother, who is president of the British Olympic Association, on Tuesday.
On Sunday, the Duke, who is president of the FA, will watch Team GB take on the UAE team in the football at Wembley Stadium. The Duke and Prince Harry will also visit the Team GB house on Monday where they will meet athletes and their families.
The Duke and Duchess and Prince Harry will attend more than 30 events between them during the Games.
Vauxhall Motors 1 Tranmere Rovers 1: Tranmere’s winning pre-season run stalls at Motors - Liverpool Echo
TRANMERE’S run of comfortable pre-season victories was checked by Vauxhall Motors’ dogged resistance at Rivacre Park.
The Blue Square North side dug out an honourable draw after Cole Stockton’s well-taken opener was cancelled out by a Tom Rutter equaliser two minutes before half-time.
If a couple of challenges by the Motorman were a little too robust for the taste of the Rovers’ coaching staff, manager Ronnie Moore was the least grateful that his players were put through the most rigorous examination of their pre-season preparations so far.
Moore gave a runouts to two new triallists, centre-back Michael Kamara and striker Jonathan Tehoue.
The visitors were most impressive in the final 20 minutes of the first half, when they created several clear-cut openings. Wholesale changes involving all 10 outfield players after 60 minutes broke the pattern of Tranmere’s play and in spite of maintaining a strong territorial advantage, they could not convert the pressure into a second goal.
By playing Zoumana Bakayogo and fit-again Lucas Akins in wide roles supporting the front pair of Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro and Stockton, Tranmere boasted an abundance of attacking pace in the first half and made use of it from the start.
The Motormen mounted defensive resistance that was better organised and more disciplined than Rovers encountered in the friendlies against Cammell Laird and Heswall earlier in the week.
So it took the League One team a little time to carve out openings. Indeed it was the part-timers who made the first threat of the contest when Rutter’s well struck 25-yard shot was athletically parried by goalkeeper Owain Fon Williams.
Tranmere probably should have gone ahead on 26 minutes when Bakayogo’s dashing run down the left spread the home defence and the Frenchman’s low cross set up Akpa Akpro, whose close range shot was resourcefully saved by goalkeeper Zach Jones.
The visitors went ahead five minutes later when Stockton, taking Akpa Akpro’s cross from the left with his back to goal, controlled, turned and finished sweetly with a low shot inside the right-hand post.
Stockton, who enjoyed a loan spell with Motors last season, might have had a hat-trick by half-time.
His 20-yard chip shot was touched over the bar by Jones, who made an even better stop at close range when the striker made space on his right foot.
Tranmere were pegged back by an equaliser two minutes before the break. Craig Mahon did well to work the ball back from the byline on the left, his cross taking a deflection into the path of Rutter who fired home from 10 yards.
A Rovers defence featuring triallist Kamara at centre back had some work to do in keeping the bouyant home side out at the start of the second half. Kamara, 23, has experience at non-League level with Woking, Staines Town and Borehamwood.
Tranmere made a complete change of outfield players after 60 minutes and introduced a second triallist, Tehoue, a 28-year-old who was previously been with Leyton Orient.
Paul Black, the left-back signed from Oldham this summer, saw his first action of the pre-season in the final half-hour, having missed the first two games with a thigh strain.
Tranmere’s coaching staff were unhappy with a couple of heavy challenges, one on Kamara in the first half and the second on Francis Jeffers.
Motors captain Tom Hannigan was withdrawn by the home bench five minutes after his challenge on Jeffers.
Jake Kirby and Jeffers came closest to turning Tranmere second-half pressure into a goal. Jeffers’ last minute header cleared the crossbar by couple of inches.
TRANMERE: Fon Williams, Kay (Holmes 60), McChrystal (Taylor 60), Kamara (Ali-Gharzoul 60), Vaulks (Black 60), Akins (Kirby 60), Harrison (Palmer 60), Power (Robinson 60), Bakayogo (Bell-Baggie 60), Stockton (Jeffers 60), Akpa Akpro (Tehoue).
Referee: J Dowd.
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