The London Olympics 2012 starts now!
A light display is seen at the Olympic Stadium after a full dress rehearsal in London.
Bells rang out across Britain on Friday to signal the final countdown to the Olympic Games, which open with an exuberant and eccentric ceremony celebrating the nation in an explosion of dance, music and fireworks inspired by Shakespeare's Tempest.
The three-hour showcase created by Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle takes spectators on a journey from Britain's idyllic countryside through the grime of the Industrial Revolution and ending in an explosion of pop culture.
Watched by 60,000 people at the main Olympic stadium built in a run-down part of east London and a global audience of more than a billion, the event will have passages described by British Prime Minister David Cameron as "spine-tingling".
Former England striker Michael Owen carries the Olympic Torch through Battersea dogs home with a Staffordshire Bull Terrier called Rory.
The spectators will be urged to join in sing-alongs and help create spectacular visual scenes at an event that sets the tone for the sporting extravaganza, when 16,000 athletes from 204 countries share the thrill of victory and agony of defeat with 11 million visitors.
The Games will also answer the question on Britons' lips—were seven years of planning, construction and disruptions, and a price tag of US$14 billion (RM44.3b) during one of the country's worst recessions, actually worth it?
"There is a huge sense of excitement and anticipation because Britain is ready to welcome the greatest show on Earth," said Cameron. "This is a great moment for our country so we must seize it."
Prince William, along with Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry watch as Olympic torchbearer Wai-Ming Lee hands over the flame to John Hulse during a visit to Buckingham Palace.
There have, however, been bumps along the way.
Media coverage was until recently dominated by 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.
Counter-terrorism chiefs have played down fears of a major attack on the Games, and Cameron said that a safe and secure Olympics was his priority. "This is the biggest security operation in our peacetime history, bar none, and we are leaving nothing to chance."
Suicide attacks on London in July 2005 killed 52 people. This year the Games coincide with the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Munich massacre when Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli Olympic team members. Calls for an official commemoration of the tragedy at the opening ceremony have been refused.
The last Olympic Torchbearer Tyler Rix and London Mayor Boris Johnson celebrate together on stage at the Olympic Torch Relay Concert in Hyde Park.
Heavy traffic in central London and severe delays on Britain's creaking train system have added to the grumbling.
A series of doping scandals have tarnished the Games' image in the build-up, with at least 11 athletes banned so far, and Greek triple jumper Paraskevi Papachristou became the Olympics' first "twitter victim" when she was withdrawn from the team over tweeted comments deemed racist.
A diplomatic faux pas, when the flag of South Korea appeared at a women's football match between North Korea and Colombia, prompted fuming North Korean players to walk off the pitch and delayed kick-off by more than an hour.
All of that is likely to be forgotten as attention around the globe turns to the opening ceremony, which begins at 2000 GMT (3am Malaysian time) and ends more than three hours later.
While Boyle has urged the 10,000 participating volunteers and large crowds at rehearsals this week to keep the show a secret, some elements are already in the public domain.
A model of the rural English scene which will be the centrepiece for the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.
Titled Isles Of Wonder, it opens with a recreation of bucolic bliss, complete with fields, hedges, sheep, geese, a shire horse, shepherdesses and even a game of village cricket.
The mood then darkens as "England's green and pleasant land", from a poem by William Blake, makes way for the sooty chimneys and smoking steel works of the "dark Satanic Mills", evoking the 19th century urban settings of Dickens.
Stirring music from Britain's past and present provides the soundtrack, which comes to the fore in the latter stages with a psychedelic celebration of pop culture including songs, sitcoms and cinema classics. Cyclists with illuminated "wings" circle the arena, creating a stunning effect for cameras suspended from the stadium roof.
Boyle's ode to the National Health Service, a politically charged topic in Britain where people are emotionally tied to the ideal of a welfare state, may make less sense to people watching from afar.
But a closing performance by ex-Beatle Paul McCartney should have global appeal for a ceremony that will contrast sharply with Beijing's tightly choreographed, large-scale version.
Boyle had UK£27 million (RM134m) to spend on his spectacular, well under half the amount estimated to have been spent in China in 2008.
There are still plenty of secrets, including who will have the honour of lighting the Olympic cauldron, the moment symbolising the opening of the Games and ending the Olympic torch's 8,000-mile journey the length and breadth of Britain.
On Friday, the torch made its way up the River Thames aboard the royal barge Gloriana, which was used in Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee in June. The 86-year-old monarch will be in the crowd, along with US First Lady Michelle Obama and a host of dignitaries and celebrities.
Source: Reuters
Published: 27th July 2012
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