London | Olympische Spiele 2012 - Olympic Games 2012

[goschio]

Originally Posted by jerseyboi

Is this really how it looks like a few days before opening?

[erbse]

Resembles some provincial circus in the States.

[jerseyboi]

FINAL COUNT DOWN


The torch began its final leg in London at 6.55am at Bushey Park and has been carried through Hampton Court Palace
It boarded the royal barge Gloriana and was carried by Olympic gold-medal winning rower Matthew Pinsent.

Olympic flame is traveling down the Thames River to Tower Bridge

[Bauer-Ewald]

Im London von 1908 brauchte niemand eine halbe Armee, um die Olympischen Spiele zu schützen. London war die Hauptstadt eines Weltreichs, das Rom der Moderne. Eine selbstbewusste, kulturell gefestigte Gesellschaft prägte die Bewohner dieser Stadt. Eine Stadt der Ungleichheit, natürlich, auch eine Stadt der Revolutionäre und Sozialisten. Aber trotz aller politischen Umtriebe, trotz der geistigen Unruhe, die das Leben in Europa schon immer bestimmte, war London eine friedliche, sichere, zivilisierte Stadt. London 1908: ein Vorbild für die ganze Welt und Symbolstadt eines großen, selbstbewussten und zivilisierten Landes.

Auch 1948 brauchte man keine Soldaten, um die Olympiade zu schützen. Im England von 1948 war „Krieg“ ein Begriff, den man nur für äußeren Krieg verwendete. 1948 war London die Hauptstadt eines Landes, das diesen „Krieg“ gerade erst gewonnen hatte. Dass es jemals einen „Krieg“ im Inneren geben würde, dass dieselbe Armee, die die Engländer von Bomben aus Deutschland geschützt hatte, diese Engländer eines Tages von Bomben aus dem eigenen Land schützen muss, war unvorstellbar. London 1948: die Symbolstadt eines siegreichen Landes, das mit großer Zuversicht in die Zukunft blickte.

2012 ist das britische Weltreich verschwunden. Wie das antike Rom, das sich am Ende wieder mit der Größe Etruriens begnügen musste, schrumpft England scheinbar unaufhaltsam auf frühmittelalterliches Format zurück. Und die letzte Stadt von Bedeutung, die „Hauptstadt“ dieses zwergenhaften Gebildes, verschanzt sich in den eigenen Mauern gegen einen gefährlichen inneren Feind. London 2012: ein verstörendes, abschreckendes Beispiel und Symbolstadt für ein Land, das zutiefst verängstigt auf das große Inferno wartet.

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The three London Olympics reflect the astonishing decline of England: What was then a global empire with the thriving capital, became a dwarfed state waiting for the great multicultural inferno.

In London 1908, nobody needed half an army to guard the Olympic Games. London was the capital of an Empire, the Rome of modern times, home to a self-confident, culturally strong and stable society. A city of inequality and poverty, yes, a city of socialists as well. But despite all the political and intellectual unease, which defined Europe for ages, London was a very safe, peaceful and civilized city. London 1908: a role model for the entire world and the symbol city of a great and civilized country.

In 1948 no army was needed either to protect the Games. “War” was a word that applied to conflicts with an external power. In 1948, London was the capital of a country that had just won such a “war”. No London resident of 1948 could even imagine that a time will come, when the same army that defended the English people from bombs made in Germany will be needed to defend the English people from bombs made in England. London 1948: the symbol city of a country that looked into its future with great confidence.

In 2012 the British Empire has vanished. Like old Rome, which was reduced to the size of Etruria in its final days, England keeps shrinking back to its mediaeval format. And the only remaining city of relevance, the “capital” of this dwarfed state, entrenches itself inside its own walls against a dangerous enemy from within. London 2012: an irritating, deterring example of failed nation-management and the symbol city of a country that waits in fear for nothing but the great inferno.

[jerseyboi]

[il fenomeno]

only a few more days and its all over. i am so looking forward to it.

[jerseyboi]

Originally Posted by il fenomeno

only a few more days and its all over. i am so looking forward to it.

That's because of the number of Germany Gold medals.

[il fenomeno]

yes and also because i want to see what you will be posting then

[erbse]

He'll be promoting the London Olympic Games in 2094 then.

[jerseyboi]

Will be this http://www.glasgow2014.com/

[SO143]

Originally Posted by jerseyboi

http://i48.tinypic.com/14d1ysp.png

here's an updated version bruv!

[Himmelwärts]

Dies ist hauptsächlich ein Architektur- und Infrastrukturstrang und soll auch einer bleiben. Danke.

Erbse.

[jerseyboi]

London 2012: What the world thought of the opening ceremony?

US media coverage hailed the British eccentricity of the opening ceremony, praised the humour, puzzled over some in-jokes and mused on what it all said about the country’s search for a post-imperial identity.
The New York Times headlined its review: “A Five-Ring Opening Circus, Weirdly and Unabashedly British”.
Sarah Lyall, the newspaper’s London correspondent, wrote: ”With its hilariously quirky Olympic opening ceremony, a wild jumble of the celebratory and the fanciful; the conventional and the eccentric; and the frankly off-the-wall, Britain presented itself to the world Friday night as something it has often struggled to express even to itself: a nation secure in its own post-empire identity, whatever that actually is.
“It was neither a nostalgic sweep through the past nor a bold vision of a brave new future. Rather, it was a sometimes slightly insane portrait of a country that has changed almost beyond measure since the last time it hosted the Games, in the grim postwar summer of 1948.”


Breathtaking and bonkers..an utterly British opening ceremony 27 Jul 2012
The Washington Post wrote of an opening ceremony “full of sentiment, cheekiness” in a piece entitled: “Summer Olympics open with rock and droll”.
The newspaper continued: “If the Opening Ceremonies of the London Games sometimes seemed like the world’s biggest inside joke, the message from Britain resonated loud and clear: We may not always be your cup of tea, but you know — and so often love — our culture nonetheless.
China
Zhou Libo, a leading comedian and a host on “China’s Got Talent”, the Chinese version of the UK TV show, commented that “2008 Beijing was solemn, 2012 London is humour. Solemnity and stateliness tells the world you are strong. Humour lets the world feel you are strong; it’s about confidence.”
Huang Jianxing, one of the best-known sports commentators in China, also stressed the light-hearted nature of the ceremony. “Its strength was its humour and self-mocking tone. You could see that even the Queen was enjoying it.”

Ordinary Chinese were positive about the ceremony too, contrasting it to the much more formal Beijing 2008 Olympics ceremony. “I was shocked. I’d never have thought that you could have an opening ceremony like this,” said one Weibo user named Li Lingdang. “There was singing and dancing, JK Rowling, Mr Bean, James Bond , Beckham….The opening ceremony for Beijing was splendid but London’s was more individual.”
Australia
The Sydney Morning Herald said Danny Boyle displayed artistic genius in a brilliant balancing act. “It was not that Boyle was taking the piss, though that is like much else he brought to life this night, a time-honoured past-time in England. It was that he got the balance and tone just right; he was able somehow always to see the wood while watching 10,000 trees ... His show did not take itself too seriously, but was never trivial. It was irreverent, but never disrespectful. It was clever, but did not outsmart itself. It was at once subversive and sublime. This is a country of royals and aristocrats, but Boyle's show rejoiced in the commoner.”
Robyn Archer has been artistic director of innumerable Australian and international arts festivals and is presently creative director of the Centenary of Canberra. Archer was wowed by the fun of the ceremony’s grand scale.
“All I could think of was how much fun these guys [the creators] would have been having. You can’t do that level of spectacle inside a theatre,” said Archer. “That’s where you see the hand of Danny Boyle, a film maker who is used to working on sets of scale.”
The Queen’s willingness to participate in the fantasy element of the show will be long remembered.
“The king hit for me was the Queen and James Bond. It’s fantastic, it’s very funny, it’s iconic. It also shows her ability to be able to get into it, the fact she was willing to do that is spectacular,” Archer said.
Greece
Greeks this morning praised the ceremony as an entertaining show, but criticised what they described as a performance that was “too British” and lacking in messages of the original Olympic spirit. They said it was “too much of a big party” and carried a “sense of exaggerated British national pride and a sense of humour which not all the world understands.
“It was a successful, entertaining show, more like a big musical, a rock opera, a big party, rather than an Olympics ceremony,” said Panos Samaras, dispatched to London to cover the ceremony for Greece’s state-run NET TV network, the one which has the exclusive rights for coverage of the Olympic Games. “The British managed to successfully present their transition from an agricultural to an industrial and then high-tech society. But it was a musical that would have been more suitable for the Closing Ceremony than the Opening one”.
France
Sports newspaper L'Equipe, wrote: "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."
While daily paper Le Parisien said: "So British....an opening ceremony that was magnificent, inventive and offbeat drawing heavily on the roots of British identity".
Germany
The German newspaper Die Welt praised the opening ceremony, calling it “spectacular, glitzy but also provoking and moving”. It also focused on the Queen’s cameo role alongside 007 Daniel Craig in the James-Bond feature, with the headline the “The New Bond Girl is 86”.
“Often seen as reserved and unapproachable, the Queen changed all that alongside James Bond,” said the paper.
Die Zeit hailed the London ceremony as the perfect “counterweight” to the opening ceremony in Beijing, which, for all its wonders, had “authoritarian traits”.
“The ceremony in London, with its dancing and humour, was much more relaxed. It was creative, it was the Spirit of London,” the paper said.
In a commentary piece the Suddeutsche Zeitung contrasted London 2012 with the 1908 Olympics, when the capital city, which then ruled a quarter of the globe, first hosted the city. Comparing the bluff and confident Britain of the past with the present, the paper said the latest games “might actually help Britain in its difficult search for an identity” which for many Britons “is not entirely clear”.
Russia
Several Russian observers seemed bemused by the episode in the Olympic Stadium dedicated to the NHS, in which children jumped on beds in their pajamas. One said it was “incomprehensible to non-Britons”.
Another wrote: “The participants of the ceremony forgot to take their night-time tablets and their beds have turned into trampolines.”
However, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s prime minister and the head of its delegation in London, appeared to be enjoying the show. He tweeted a picture from the stadium of fireworks bursting over the Orbit Tower.
Georgy Cherdantsev, one of Russia’s leading sports commentators, declared the ceremony “magnificently conceived and brilliantly executed.” He added: “After today’s spectacle there’s no point in Brazil spending money in 2016, they should just begin the competition straight away.”
India
Under the headline “Londoners let hair down for big party’, The Hindu noted that a city noisily split between what it called “Olympists and non-Olympists” came together for the opening ceremony, “seduced by hype and promise of spectacle”. The show itself was a tour-de-force, the paper said, adding that there was a refreshing lack of public whinging and moaning and concluding that it was impossible not to catch the Olympics bug.
“Queen in a helicopter, Beckham on a boat — what more can you ask for?” asked the Daily News and Analysis. “If anyone doubted whether or not the title ‘Isles of Wonder’ was far-fetched, they won't now,” it went on, concluding that “all in all, it was carried out with speed, skill and perhaps most importantly, with affection. That is how it should be.”
The tabloid Mail Today managed to get a picture of the fireworks onto its front page, under the headline “London Dreams”, though its coverage, constrained by print times, concentrated on India’s woes in the archery balanced with two pages on the old colonial power’s failure to overcome Senegal in the men’s football, under the headline “Senegal prick British balloon”.
The Indian Express thought the opening ceremomy “brilliant, cheeky too” while the Times of India thought London “presented a vibrant picture of Great Britain's rich heritage and culture”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oly...-ceremony.html

[jerseyboi]

Closing Ceremony to be spectacular ,exuberant, and eccentric!

The final act of London 2012, at the 80,000-capacity main stadium built in a once run-down area of the city, will be exuberant, eccentric celebration of British history and culture.

LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) - The Olympic Games might be re-named the "Guessing Games" as Sunday's closing ceremony looms into view after the artistic director said to expect everything from British composer Edward Elgar to global chart queen Adele.

But it will feature some of the biggest names in British music and is likely to draw a global audience running in the hundreds of millions after the opening showpiece attracted an estimated 900 million television viewers.

The Closing Ceremony is expected to be very different to the previous games.

(Reuters)

[jerseyboi]

Originally Posted by Gregori.P

image hosted on flickr

London Tower Bridge by david.bank (www.david-bank.com), on Flickr

kool

[jerseyboi]

All eyes on London for Closing Ceremony
The closing ceremony is Sunday at 9pm (GMT)

The Olympic closing ceremony will be a fun tribute to British music, London 2012 chairman Lord Coe said.
Describing it as an "after show party" with lots of headline talent, Lord Coe said: " It's basically a tribute to British music over the last few decades. It's fun."
Artistic director Kim Gavin has already said it will be "an elegant mash-up of British music" including anything from Adele and Elgar.
The Sunday night show at the Olympic Stadium is set to be more relaxed than the Danny Boyle-masterminded opening which was packed with references to British history and culture.
The public's appetite for the big event may have been whetted by pop stars such as George Michael, the Pet Shop Boys, Jessie J and Tinie Tempah, who have been photographed at rehearsals.
Brazilian supermodel Alessandro Ambrosio said she has been rehearsing for Rio 2016's segment during the ceremony alongside the Spice Girls.
Organisers from the Rio 2016 Games, the next Olympic host city, have an eight-minute slot in the London 2012 closing ceremony which acts as a taster of things to come.
A lively mix of music, dance and culture has been offered, including big name stars and characters from Brazil. She said: "I have been doing a lot of rehearsal so my highlight has been to mix with everybody."
Of the possibility of an appearance by the Spice Girls, a London 2012 spokesman: "We would like to save the surprise. There is not long to wait."
The main themes of the Rio 2016 performance is based around entertainment, cultural diversity, the contagious energy of the Brazilian people and an invitation to Rio.

London will end with a spectacular,exuberant, and eccentric Ceremony.

[jerseyboi]

Closing Ceremony Day & hand over to Rio 2016 (9pm GMT )

[jerseyboi]

Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony Tonight/The Games returns home........

Paralympics opening ceremony 2012: a 'brave new world' and the games
returns to its place of its birth!

The Paralympic Games had their humble beginnings just over fifty years ago, in Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, England. The earliest beginnings of the creation of athletic Games for people with disabilities can be traced back to World War II and the efforts of a doctor from England named Ludwig Guttmann. Known as the “Father of Sport for People with Disabilities,” Dr. Guttmann was a strong advocate of using sports therapy to enhance the quality of life for people who were injured or wounded during World War II.

Dr. Guttmann organized the 1948 International Wheelchair Games to coincide with the 1948 London Olympics. His dream was of a worldwide sports competition for people with disabilities to be held every four years as “the equivalent of the Olympic Games.”

[jerseyboi]

Its goodbye from London 2012 and worlds best games ever. London a City that influenced the world through time.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4As0e4de-rI

Paralympic games was declared the best games ever.

See

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml



Good luck Rio!