Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 9, 1992 TAG: 9202090211
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ALBERTVILLE, FRANCE LENGTH: Medium
WAVE SWEEPS OVER OLYMPICS
There you are in the midst of a European moment. You've got music by Beethoven and Bach, guys on overhead wires in Leonardo da Vinci birdmen suits and living sculptures drawn from Calder.There are hundreds of acrobats, gymnasts, skaters and flag wavers on the stage, performing an Olympic extravaganza they have been practicing for months.
So what is the big hit with the opening ceremony crowd at Olympic Park?
The Wave.
The group activity of standing and waving in unison got started early in the festivities as the 64 different national teams marched into the park. Members of the Canadian team were the instigators, starting it a couple of times before fellow athletes picked it up.
"We did it in Calgary in '88 and it was sort of spontaneous," said Cal Langford, a member of the Canadian bobsled team. "We started shouting `The Wave! The Wave!' and tried to get everybody doing it at the same time."
Dressed in white parkas, the Canadian section looked like a mini-blizzard as it rose and fell. The Irish team passed it on to the Jamaicans, who passed it on to a more enthusiastic German team.
The Germans showed off their new unity by standing and sitting with great precision.
"The Canadians are the people who always start the wave and the other teams just start doing it with us," said Angela Cutrone, a Canadian speed skater. "They are always doing it at hockey games."
Not everybody caught on right away. Unified Team members from the former Soviet Union seemed uncertain what to do. So did Vice President Dan Quayle, who sat in the VIP section with French President Francois Mitterrand and other dignitaries.
The Wave rolled by the section four times before Quayle - and his wife, Marilyn - did anything. Then, in another example of international cooperation, the Quayles, Mitterrand, IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch and French skiing hero Jean Claude Killy jumped to their feet and raised their arms to the darkening sky.
The participation with the masses earned Quayle cheers of approval from the crowd. So he did it five more times before the crowd tired of it.
Later, as hundreds of pseudo-accordianists pumped out Eurobeat music over the loudspeakers, the crowd swayed back and forth in unison, then broke into another round of spontaneous waves.
The decidedly American invention of whooping it up in baseball parks, football stadiums and basketball courts began in the early 1980s. It is a subject of much debate of its actual origin. Some say Oakland A's fans were the originators; others say it was Kentucky basketball boosters.
However it started, The Wave has long since made its way to other venues on other continents. Much of the rest of the world was introduced to the wave during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City. Its European name is even called the Mexican Wave. In Spanish, it's La Ola.
It even made it to the normally staid Centre Court at Wimbledon last year. Bad weather forced the tennis tournament's organizers to hold an unscheduled day of competition for the first time ever on the middle Sunday and open the gates to those who never get a chance to get tickets - just the sort of people who do the Wave with great gusto.
And let us not forget Fidel Castro, El Commandante himself, leading his Cuban followers in La Ola at last summer's Pan American Games in Havana.
Still, despite its rapid spread, some Olympians were a bit unfamiliar with the Wave.
"We do not know this wave, but we like it very much," said Johan Taulsen, a doctor with the German hockey team. "It was my first time."
Others didn't even know the name of what they had done.
"Wave?" asked a puzzled Russian member of the Unified Team. His confusion turned to smiles when The Wave was demonstrated.
"Oh, wave," he repeated. "Wave is very good."