LONDON 2012

Olympic 100-metre champion Usain Bolt will lose his crown to compatriot Yohan Blake unless he quickly fixes technical problems with his race, former world record holder Maurice Greene told Reuters yesterday.

The American said Bolt's vulnerability in the first 60 metres, already exposed this year by the younger Jamaican, gave his rivals the scent of gold that was absent in Beijing four years ago.

"If Usain was running like he was in Beijing, he would win hands down," said the 2000 Olympic gold medallist. "But he is not running like that."

Body position out of the starting blocks and in the first 60 metres are hurting the world's most famous sprinter, Greene said.

"Those problems...bring everybody closer to him, which makes him susceptible to losing," said Greene, who is serving as a television analyst at the Games.

"Usain is the more talented, but Blake has a better technical race," added Greene, who correctly predicted Blake would win last year's 100m world championship in which Bolt false-started.

Blake, the year's fastest at both 100 and 200, also prevailed in last month's Jamaican Olympic trials in which Bolt was slowed by hamstring problems.

Although there has been much speculation about Bolt's fitness, Greene said he did not believe he is currently injured.

"All of his problems are technical," Greene said.

Bolt looked sluggish in both Jamaican races, prompting many to predict the lanky sprinter would fail in his bid for a repeat in the 100.

He badly wants both golds to secure his place as a great in the sport he dominates. No man has ever claimed repeat Olympic titles in both.

Bolt will win the 200 hands down, Greene said, but there will be no runaway victory by anyone in the 100.

"Not unless the freak comes out in Usain Bolt," said Greene when asked if anyone could duplicate the Jamaican's two-tenths of a second victory in Beijing.

"He is only one that can do that. He might be capable of doing it again. I just don't see from the races I have seen that he is in that type of shape."

Beyond Bolt and Blake, the race for the bronze is wide open, Greene said.

Americans Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay, Jamaican former world record holder Asafa Powell and Trinidad and Tobago's Keston Bledman all should be in the mix for the final medal.

Gay, the world's second fastest man, has the speed to run with the best when healthy, but Greene said he was concerned about his hesitancy to go all out at the start because of hip surgery that kept him off the track for nearly a year.

Gatlin's tendency to rush his transition could cost the 2004 Olympic champion who served a four-year doping ban between 2006-10, Greene said.

Powell has the talent, but his poor record in major championships makes him suspect.

"If he is relaxed, he might beat everybody," Greene said.

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London's Olympic organisers launched an investigation into empty seats on the first day of the Games yesterday.

On a school holiday and after months of public complaints over the inability of thousands in Britain to buy tickets, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the minister responsible for the Olympics, said he was disappointed by the empty seats and that the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) were looking into it.

"LOCOG are doing a full investigation into what happened," Hunt told publicly-funded broadcaster BBC one day after a widely praised opening ceremony starring Queen Elizabeth, Paul McCartney and Rowan Atkinson.

Television coverage of events on Saturday showed and visitors to venues found scores of empty seats in the early part of the day at the aquatics centre, in the basketball arena and later on at Wimbledon for the tennis. There was also plenty of space to stretch out in the Olympic Park.

"We think it was accredited seats that belong to sponsors, but if they are not going to turn up, we want those tickets to be available for members of the public, because that creates the best atmosphere. So we are looking at this very urgently at the moment," Hunt said.

Sports Minister Hugh Robertson said he was surprised that the events were not full.

LOCOG became used to putting up the "sold out" sign within minutes of each tranche of tickets going on sale to the public.

On Saturday some ticket box offices at venues in the park still had queues of people seeking to buy tickets for selected sports.

"I've been trying and trying every day to get (soccer) tickets for Argentina," 34-year-old Argentinian electrician Lucas Lopez told Reuters on a stroll through the park.

"Where there are empty seats, we will look at who should have been sitting in the seats, and why they did not attend. Early indications are that the empty seats are in accredited seating areas, but this is day one, and our end of day review will provide a fuller picture," LOCOG said in a statement late on Saturday.

LOCOG declined to provide a figure for the number of people in the park on Saturday or how many tickets had been sold but said that 11 million people would attend the Games.

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This was a stripped down Opening Ceremony, revealing the truth of so many elements of Britain's history that we take as read in a vivid and beautifully modulated show which presaged a coup de theatre which confounded all the – heated - discussion about Who Would Light The Olympic Cauldron.

Not David Beckham. Nor Daley Thompson, nor Kelly Holmes, nor even five-times Olympic champion Sir Steve Redgrave, although all played their part in bearing the Torch on the final stages of long journey to this stadium in east London.

Finally, the ancient Flame was transferred to its temporary resting place by collective youth – seven young athletes nominated by seven of Britain's greatest Olympians and acting jointly to ignite a "Flame of Unity" composed of copper "petals" within a giant bowl in the centre of the stadium which formed itself into a group of firebrands.

Not so much an Olympic cauldron as an Olympic thicket.

And when you think about it, this was entirely in keeping with an Olympics which was drawn towards London rather than Paris by the emphasis the British bidders laid upon what these Games could do for the nation's youth.

Beckham glided on a speedboat up the Thames, along the River Lee, bearing the Flame; Redgrave brought it from the river into the stadium along a lit bridge, playing yet another significant sporting role for his country, but this time not on water but land.

Meanwhile Sarah Stevenson, the 2008 taekwondo Olympic bronze medallist whose parents both died last year and who has overcome injury to secure her place at these Games, took the Athletes' Oath. It was a profoundly touching honour for a determined and courageous competitor – on what was a profoundly touching night.

Gone were the huge battalions of Beijing. The stadium was not always filled with noise – images and captions of the screens did much of the necessary work.

The central field was not always filled with performers.

The whole show ebbed and flowed, offering successive images and sounds to remind us of and reconnect us with the deepest parts of our national life.

Abide With Me, the setpiece anthem of so many FA Cup finals, was sung with quiet fervour by Akram Khan and Emeli Sande as a small but perfectly formed dance troupe performed in dramatic orange lighting under the disc of an imaginary sun: the old made fresh and new.

The Torch Ceremony was preceded by fireworks and the Arctic Monkeys, playing among other songs the Beatles' Come Together – energy in vivid abundance.

As the teams marched in – to the constant beating of drums – any trepidation about the appearance of North Korea after the Old Trafford flag fiasco was quickly quelled.

It was the correct flag.

Strangely the South Koreans also managed to flourish the correct flag too.

It's not hard, is it?

The succession of excited athletes marching behind their nominated flagbearer and a demurely smiling young maid bearing the name of the nation in a silvery sign above her head recalled directly the Opening Ceremonies of times past. The numerous athletes recording the appearance on mobile phone cameras reminded of times present.

But it is one of enduring richnesses of the Olympics that so many nations are involved, nations that do not tend to find a profile within world sport except for this four-yearly procession: Aruba, Benin, Bhutan, British Virgin Islands, Kiribati, Kyrgyzslan, Federated States of Micronesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Nauru, Sao Tome and Principe, Timor Leste...

The names, the excited faces, have a cumulative and moving power.

Here the world is, so much of it, and we, Britain, are hosts. 1908, 1948, now.

The turn-out for the United States team was huge – its squad stretched easily down the straight and round the bend.

A statement of intent?

The roar for the British – last, as hosts, but by no means likely to be last in the medals table – was predictably marked.

The team's arrival was marked by a storm of white confetti – mirroring their white outfits with fold trim.

Out they came to the sound of David Bowie's Heroes – just for one night.

Up in the Royal Box, hands clapped along.

Such is the bizarre power of Olympics.

The evening's entertainment had begun peacefully, quietly – bucolically in fact – with pastoral scenes on a British meadow upon which country folk cavorted and real cows, goats and geese blithered about.

Although the cottage in the centre of infield looking , frankly, inflammatory and deserving of the attention of the many fire marshals who have been busying themselves on the Olympic site over the last few weeks.

In a brief appearance before the Ceremony-proper had got underway, the director, Danny Boyle, offered a welcome and a hope that it would not rain – which, but for five minutes, proved founded.

He concluded with a quote from Billy Connolly: "I don't believe in God, but I believe in the people who do" – referencing those who were the keepers of the Olympic spirit.

Not quite sure what he meant by this.

The fervent hope was that the ringing of the Olympic Bell at the end of the countdown minutes after the Ceremony-proper began would not see any repeat of the incident earlier in the day when a handbell rung on camera by the Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt detached itself from its handle and flew just past the head of a nearby young woman.

Hunt's ding-dong moment came as part of the day's Ring The Bells activity – now known as the Great Bells Up.

The countdown arrived and was negotiated in orderly fashion, upon which Bradley Wiggins, Britain's first Tour de France winner, arrived in his yellow jersey and approached the biggest bicycle bell he had ever rung and rung it, firmly, once, without referring to raffle tickets or anything else.

A choir sang Jerusalem and – smart work on the big display screens – a picture of Jonny Wilkinson wheeling in triumph from that World Cup drop-kick coincided with the words "chariots of fire".

So good that we didn't cut to the ludicrous racing along the sand which has become the quick ID of the film of that name – although we did get a spoof version featuring Rowan Atkinson later, which was also good and in the informal spirit of this event.

As had been rumoured, there was an airing for God Save The Queen – the Sex Pistols' version, that was.

However, the informality of the event did not stretch to playing the line "she ain't no human being"; nor indeed did the excerpt from London Calling by The Clash extend to the bit about "a nuclear error".

The history of our nation was swiftly dealt with as we began with a thunderous depiction of the Industrial Revolution which concluded with an acknowledgement of the great Sigmund Freud – whose groundbreaking work on the human mind began soon after the Revolution had finished – as sex giant smokestack chimneys tumesced their way between banks of green sward.

But, hang on. Wasn't Freud Austrian? (And, of course, I meant six giant smokestack chimneys. Sorry.)

Before long the smokestacks were doing what smokestacks do – it looked a Health and Safety nightmare from where we were sitting two rows in from the action – but then, as we have already established, there were ample fire marshals in attendance.

Soon, however, the fire marshals had something else to worry about: the sight of five Olympic rings of "molten steel" shedding fireworks directly above the head of the bucolic actors on the green fields beneath.

Soon, there was a mighty murmur of surprise as the audience realised that the film showing on the big screen in which Daniel Craig, as James Bond, was ushered into a room in "Buckingham Palace" where a silver-haired "Queen" was seated with her back to him, ignoring him until he cleared his throat, was really showing a room in Buckingham Palace.

And, as the turning figure revealed, was really featuring the Queen.

The pair was then shown leaving the Palace en route for a helicopter which then flew over London's landmarks, and under the Olympic Rings suspended beneath Tower Bridge, before reaching the stadium, where they parachuted out.

It soon became clear, however, that spectators had been cruelly duped, as the real Queen arrived in the stand accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh and the IOC President Jacques Rogge – all very disappointing.

By way of welcome, a choir of children very nicely sang the National Anthem – and more than one verse of it too.

No plastic Brits on show tonight, thank you.

The centrefield then filled with nurses pushing beds – thankfully, despite the late disappearance of the stunt biking and other elements from the Ceremony because of worries about people being able to get transport home, the National Health had avoided further cuts.

Irresistible – spotting the groups and the acts as the Ceremony celebrated British popular music.

Oh yes, we are really good at this. The Who. The Beatles. The Clash. The Jam. The Sex Pistols. The Prodigy. Blur. Dizzee Rascal. Just imagine if Paris had won the bid – it would have been 20 minutes of Johnny Hallyday (is that terribly unkind?).

Next, we were invited to join Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, as his words "This is for everyone" appeared writ large on the audience.

In his welcoming address, the London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe said: "I have never been so proud to be British and to be a part of the Olympic Movement as I am on this day at this moment.

In every Olympic sport there is all that makes life worth living.

"Humans stretched to the limit of their capabilities, inspired by what they can achieve, driven by their talent to work harder than they can believe possible, living for the moment but making an indelible mark on history."

Fine words to conclude a fine and proud occasion

By Mike Rowbottom

Source:www.insidethegames.biz

The London 2012 Olympics got off to the best possible start on the banks of the Thames last night, as artistic director Danny Boyle's breathtaking 100-minute Opening Ceremony captivated an 80,000 crowd packed with celebrities and VIPs.

From the moment yellow-jerseyed Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins opened proceedings at 9pm GMT with a single chime of the 23-tonne Olympic bell, the audience was subjected to a joyous assault on the senses that catapulted them through 200 years of British history from the industrial to the digital revolution, the latter embodied by the presence of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web.

The answer to the night's great secret, the identity of the lighter of the Olympic cauldron in the centre of the stadium, was not revealed until well after midnight – and virtually none of the speculation that had accompanied the build-up to the Games was right.

The honour was bestowed on seven young athletes said to represent the host nation's hopes for the next Olympics and beyond, in keeping with the emphasis on youth maintained by the London project since it won the right to host the 2012 Games in Singapore seven years ago.

The most daring of many spectacular coups de theatres that preceded this came when the Queen appeared – repeat, appeared – to parachute into the stadium from a helicopter, accompanied by James Bond actor Daniel Craig.

But, from Ken Loach to Harry Potter, there was scarcely a cultural reference-point that wasn't touched upon in a show that also included a snatch of the Sex Pistols' version of God Save the Queen, a song once famously banned by Olympic broadcaster the BBC, and a Mini or two, much to the delight, no doubt, of London 2012 sponsor BMW.

Other highpoints included the climax of the industrial revolution segment, with the Olympic rings, in red hot steel suspended over the stadium bathed in blue light; a cameo by Rowan Atkinson, the comedian behind Mr Bean, as the white-mopped Sir Simon Rattle conducted music from the Olympics film Chariots of Fire; and an extended passage celebrating the National Health Service (NHS), featuring hundreds of children and NHS beds and employees.

If it could not quite match the sheer jaw-dropping awe of Beijing's Opening Ceremony of four years ago, Boyle's £27 million ($42 million/€34 million) creation was infused with a warmth and humanity notably lacking from that no-expense-spared paean to China's emergence as a global power.

If that 2008 show was, at heart, a celebration of uniformity, this was a crowded, phantasmagorical hymn to diversity.

After a long interlude while the 205 athlete delegations filed colourfully in, culminating with Britain, led by Flagbearer Sir Chris Hoy, the Arctic Monkeys heralded the most formal part of proceedings.

First, from an artificial green hill, now bedecked with flags, to one end of the stadium, we were all welcomed by London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe.

"In the next two weeks, we will show all that has made London one of the greatest cities in the world," Coe promised.

"This is our time"

In a short address, dwelling on London's unique role in Olympic history as the host of three Summer Games spanning more than a century, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge proclaimed: "The Olympic Games are coming home tonight."

Rogge also emphasised that for the first time in Olympic history all participating teams would have female members, in a development he described as "a major boost for gender equality".

Fittingly it was left to a woman, Her Majesty the Queen, seemingly none the worse for her parachute glide, to declare the Games open.

And then it was on to the raising of the Olympic flag in the presence of a frail Muhammad Ali and the night's concluding moment: the symbolic lighting of the Olympic cauldron by the seven young Torchbearers.

The day had started with the Queen's rowbarge Gloriana carrying the Olympic Flame down the Thames, trailed by a flotilla, as it neared the end of its 70-day, 8,000-mile journey around Britain.

At 8.12am, bells rang out across Britain for three minutes.

British Prime Minister David Cameron declared the country "ready to welcome the greatest show on earth".

And what do you know? He was right.

If I may end with one mildly discordant note, it was that we nearly ended up relating these great events under a length of plastic sheeting – the organisers' disconcertingly primitive means of combating the threat of possible rain.

As it turned out, we stayed dry, by the skin of our teeth.

But in an isle which, as we all know, is full of weather as well as noises, this was just not good enough.

By David Owen at the Olympic Stadium in London

Source: www.insidethegames.biz