LONDON OLYMPIC GAMES 2012 OPENING CEREMONY

London Olympic Games 2012 Opening Ceremony

London Olympics 2012 Opening Ceremony Images

London Opens The Olympics 2012

The Queen has declared the London Olympic games officially open, before seven young athletes were given the honour of lighting the ceremonial flame.
Great Britain opened its Olympic games with a royal entrance like no other. 
London greeted the world in a celebration of Old England that was stunning, imaginative, whimsical and dramatic - and cheeky, even featuring a stand-in for Queen Elizabeth II parachuting into Olympic Stadium. 
Moments later, the 86-year-old Queen herself stood solemnly while a children's choir serenaded her with ''God Save the Queen,'' and members of the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force raised the Union Jack. 
Fighter jets streaming red, white and blue smoke roared over the stadium, packed with a buzzing crowd of 60,000 people. 
The show featured celebrities and sportspeople from all walks of British life, including David Beckham, Bradley Wiggins and Daniel Craig as James Bond. 
Games chief Seb Coe welcomed the world to London, saying the event celebrates "what is best about mankind". 
The three-hour spectacle was watched by TV audiences around the world. 
The identity of who was to light the symbolic flame had been shrouded in secrecy ahead of the ceremony. 
Opting for young athletes over one of Britain's sporting greats, the group of seven each lit a single tiny flame on the ground, which triggered the ignition of more than 200 petals. Long stems then rose towards each other to form a cauldron, signifying unity. 

Opening Ceremony of London Olympic Games 2012

Flag-bearer Sir Chris Hoy earlier led out Team Great Britain, who were dressed in white and gold tracksuits, to loud applause. The show, billed as a quirky take on British life, started with iconic images of London and Britain being beamed to the world, and all four countries of the UK were represented in song. 
The field at the stadium in Stratford in east London was turned into a green meadow, with a cast of 10,000 volunteers taking roles from British history. 
The show took the watching world through "great revolutions in British society", from an agricultural setting through to the Industrial Revolution itself. Steelworkers began forging material that transformed into golden Olympic rings, which lifted into the air to be suspended above the performers. 
The parade of nations was expected to feature most of the roughly 10,500 athletes - some planned to stay away to save their strength for competition - marching behind the flags of the 204 nations taking part. 
Greece had the lead, as the spiritual home of the games, and Team Great Britain was last, as the host. The tradition of athletes marching into the stadium by nation at the opening ceremony began at London's first Olympic, in 1908. 

Logo of London Olympic 2012

The show's lighter moments included puppets drawn from British children's literature - Captain Hook from ''Peter Pan'', Cruella de Vil from ''101 Dalmations'' and Lord Voldemort from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, as well as Mary Poppins. 
Their appearance had a serious message, too - the importance of literacy. ''If you can read and write, you're free, or you can fight for your freedom,'' Boyle said. 
The director of Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting also laced the show with snippets from British cinema, including the actor Daniel Craig as James Bond, and the spine-tingling soundtrack to Chariots of Fire which told the story of a Scotsman and an Englishman at the 1924 Paris Games. 
Boyle's $42 million show, with 15,000 volunteers, promised to take the expected global television audience of 1 billion on a rich and textured journey through British history. 
His challenge was daunting: To be as memorable as Beijing's incredible, money-no-object opening ceremony of 2008, the costliest in Olympic history. ''Beijing is something that, in a way, was great to follow,'' Boyle said. ''You can't get bigger than Beijing, you know? So that, in a way, kind of liberated us. We thought, 'Great, OK, good, we'll try and do something different.''' 
Boyle drew from Shakespeare, British pop culture, literature and music, and other sources of inspiration that will speak to - but perhaps at times baffle - not just Anglophiles but people across the globe. 
It was Rogge's last time as president of the International Olympic Committee to watch the Olympic flag being raised at an opening ceremony. He will step down in 2013 after completing the maximum two terms.








Tags : london , olympic , games , queen , england , beijing , greece , great , britain , british , boyle , stadium , shakespeare , harry potter , piter pan , mary poppins , j.k. rowling , james bond