THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 20, 1996 TAG: 9607200369
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Olympics '96
Day 2
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: 120 lines
Immortal spirit of antiquity
Father of the true, beautiful and good
Descend, appear, shed over us thy light
Upon this ground and under this sky
Which has first witnessed thy unperishable flame
In 1896, 245 male athletes from 13 countries marched into a stadium in Athens, Greece, the day after Easter. An orchestra performed the Olympic Hymn, the first stanza of which appears above, and a choir and the athletes raised their voices.
Then with 40,000 people in the seats and another 30,000 looking on from the surrounding hills, King George of Greece pronounced the first Olympic Games in 1,500 years open.
Whether or not the ceremony came in under budget is lost to time.
Friday night, just down the road from Athens, Ga., the Games of the XXVI Olympiad opened. Opened is too mild a word. They blew the doors and hinges off the thing, here among the Southern folk the world rolled its eyes at six years ago when Bubba got the Games.
Oh, the choreography! If nothing else, the kickoff of the 26th Games, the Centennial Games, proved that the Olympic motto isn't ``Faster, Higher, Stronger'' for nothing. The lengths to which the opening ceremonies can and will go apparently know no bounds.
What happened was a staggering interactive production of lights, fireworks, stilts, wonder, gospel music and surround-sound featuring President Bill Clinton, conductor John Williams, a percussion tour-de-force composed by the Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart, the Air Force Thunderbirds, singers Celine Dion, Jessye Norman and the Pips-less Gladys Knight, the voice of James Earl Jones, the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., U.S. Army rapellers, 85,000 revelers, 11,000 athletes and 3.5 billion TV viewers world-wide.
Among others.
The extravagance-za was the many-headed monster of the roster of ceremonies, including the medal ceremonies, that will chew up $31 million before the Games are through.
A cast of 5,500, not counting the one Old Man River puppet and four Catfish puppets that pulled the river chariot, pranced and danced around the Olympic Stadium before the nearly two-hour march of 197 nations began. Since rehearsals began May 10, that cast has drunk $500,000 worth of bottled water.
Imagine what Spiros Samaras and Costis Palamis, authors of the Olympic Hymn, would think of that. Bottled water.
Give life and animation to these noble Games!
Throw of wreaths of fadeless flowers to the victors
In the race and in the struggle!
Create in our breast, hearts of steel!
Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Games, started it. ``It is above all,'' he said, ``through the ceremonies that the Olympiad must distinguish itself from a mere series of world championships.''
Championships will be won, but do not think that the ceremonies that mark them are about sports, or were ever intended to be. Sports bring in the athletes, but the ceremonies, unapologetically, are about peoples and culture, art and music, poetry and history and commerce. And faster, higher and stronger are expected of them every four years.
``This is very important to our people -- we are creating an image of the post-Cold War America,'' said Dr. John Macaloon, of the University of Chicago Dept. of Anthropology, an opening ceremonies adviser. ``We are representing a multi-cultural society to the world torn anew by racial and ethnic and religious struggles.''
Which obviously accounted for the 30 chrome pickup trucks that toted floodlights across the stadium floor, throwing beams to the reaches of Olympic Stadium.
``The notion of outdoing previous ceremonies is not our goal,'' Macaloon insisted. ``(It is) being true to your culture and honoring the achievements of past ceremonies in current world circumstances.
``The ceremony is a ritual, not a sporting event, and the goal is different.''
In thy light, plains, mountains and seas
Shine in a roseate hue and for a vast temple
To which all nations throng to adore thee,
Oh, immortal spirit of antiquity!
Wrestler Bruce Baumgartner and basketball player Teresa Edwards, both four-time Olympians, can tell you about opening ceremonies. Especially so today, after performing a duty that each called the honor of their life.
Baumgartner, 35, a two-time gold medalist, was chosen by the American team to carry the flag into the stadium. Edwards, who's also won two golds, was selected to recite the athletes' oath, on her 32nd birthday and in her adopted hometown, no less.
``My birthdays usually go unnoticed,'' Edwards said.
When Edwards was first an Olympian in 1984 in Los Angeles, hurdler Edwin Moses was the designated oath-taker.
``I thought, God, that's got to be the toughest job in the world,'' Edwards said. ``I never in my life dreamed I'd be in that position.''
The opening ceremony, she said, ``serves as a motivational tool in itself. You feel like the whole world is under one roof. All you need to do is stand in the middle and capture the moment, everything that's happening. It's highly emotional, especially for someone my age.''
Baumgartner - called ``the embodiment of the embodiment'' of the Olympic athlete Friday by one U.S. Olympic Committee member - doesn't know about that. But he does know he'll never top the flag gig.
``When I first walked into the (Los Angeles) Coliseum in '84, I realized the magnitude of the Olympic Games,'' Baumgartner said. ``To have all the countries represented on the field at one time, it really excites you.''
Neither Baumgartner or Edwards mentioned the theatrics of the ceremonies. Their comments kept coming back to the gathering of the world's best athletes, of being counted among them, of how that's always been the unforgettable thrill, and always enough.
Somewhere amid Friday's awesome pyrotechnics, that message sneaked through. And lives on. It's as the Greek poet Pindar wrote in 472 B.C., long before the invention of laser beams - Just as the sun shines brighter than any other star, so shine the Olympics, greatest of them all. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS color photo
A performance depicting the ancient Olympics includes a silhouette
of a javelin thrower at Friday night's opening ceremony. A crowd of
85,000, including President Bill Clinton, watched 10,700 athletes
representing 197 countries march in. Greece led the parade as usual.
The U.S., as host country, came last. by CNB