The Spice Girls perform during the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium August 12, 2012.
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LONDON -- With a little British pomp and a lot of British
pop, London brought the curtain down on a glorious Olympic Games on Sunday in a
spectacular, technicolour pageant of landmarks, lightshows and lots of fun.
The closing ceremony offered a sensory blast including rock
'n' roll rickshaws, dustbin percussionists, an exploding yellow car and a
marching band in red tunics and bearskin hats. It was all delivered in a psychedelic mashup that had 80,000
fans at Olympic Stadium stomping, cheering and singing along. Organizers
estimated 300 million or more were watching around the world.
The fun, festive and fast-moving show opened with pop bands
Madness, Pet Shop Boys and One Direction, not to mention a shout-out to Winston
Churchill and the Union Jack. There were also monochrome recreations of London landmarks
covered in newsprint, from Big Ben's clocktower and Tower Bridge to the London
Eye ferris wheel and the chubby highrise known as the Gherkin.
It all spread out across an Olympic Stadium floor arranged
to resemble the British flag.
Street percussion group Stomp built the noise into a frenzy,
and dancers brandished brooms, in a nod to the spontaneous popular movement to
clean up London after riots shook neighbourhoods not far from Olympic Stadium
just a year ago.
And there was more to come.
The Who, the surviving members of Queen and the Spice Girls
were expected to take the stage during the three-hour paean to British pop, and
to the country's triumphant turn hosting the games.
Prince William's wife, Kate, and Prince Harry took seats
next to Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee.
They sang along to "God Save the Queen."
But perhaps the best seats in the house were for the 10,800
athletes, who marched in as one, rather than with their nations, symbolizing
the harmony and friendship inspired by the games.
As the crowd cheered, their heroes and flashbulbs rippled
through the stadium, the Olympians cheered back, some carrying national flags,
others snapping photographs with smartphones and cameras. They held hands, embraced and carried each other on their
shoulders, finally forming a human mosh pit on the field.
Soccer star Christine Sinclair, known for her serious,
focused demeanour on the pitch, was absolutely beaming as she brought the
Canadian flag into Olympic Stadium with the nation's other flag-bearers.
The rest of the Canadian contingent followed soon after,
dressed in demin jackets and khakis. Canada's outfits received mixed reviews on
Twitter, with some planning to purchase their own jackets and others decrying
the getup as stereotypical.
The ceremony had something for everyone, from tween girls to
1960s hippies. The face of John Lennon appeared on the stadium floor, assembled
by 101 fragments of sculpture, and just as quickly gave way to George Michael. Muse, Fatboy Slim, and Annie Lennox were all expected to
perform. Queen Elizabeth II, who made a memorable mock parachute entrance at
the July 27 opening ceremony, was expected to be on hand.
Eight minutes were turned over to Brazil, host of the 2016
Games in Rio de Janeiro, which promises an explosion of samba, sequins and
Latin cool. Following tradition, the mayor of London was to hand the Olympic
flag off to his Rio counterpart.
There were also to be speeches by Rogge and London
organizing committee chief Sebastian Coe, and the extinguishing of the Olympic
flame. What a way to end a games far more successful than many
Londoners expected. Security woes were overcome, and traffic nightmares never
materialized. The weather held up, more or less, and British athletes
overachieved.
It all came at a price tag of U.S.$14 billion, three times
the original estimate. But nobody wanted to spoil the fun with such mundane
concerns, at least not on this night.
Britons, who had fretted for weeks that the games would
become a fiasco, were buoyed by their biggest medal haul since 1908 -- 29 golds
and 65 medals in all.
The United States edged China in both the gold medal and
total medal standings, eclipsing its best performance at an Olympics on foreign
soil after the Dream Team narrowly held off Spain in basketball for the
country's 46th gold.
"It's been an incredible fortnight," said Coe, an
Olympic champion in his own right.
While the games may have lacked some of the drama and
grandeur of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, there were many unforgettable
moments.
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt became an Olympic legend by
repeating as champion in both the 100-metre and 200-metre sprints. Michael
Phelps ended his long career as the most decorated Olympian in history.
British distance runner Mo Farah became a national treasure
by sweeping the 5,000- and 10,000-metre races, and favourite daughter Jessica
Ennis became a global phenomenon with her victory in the heptathlon.
Female athletes took centre stage in a way they never had
before. American gymnast Gabby Douglas soared to gold, the U.S. women's
football team made a dramatic march to the championship. Packed houses turned
out to watch the new event of women's boxing. And women competed for Saudi
Arabia, Qatar and Brunei for the first time.
And then there was Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee from
South Africa running on carbon-fibre blades, who didn't win a medal but
nonetheless left a champion. And sprinter Manteo Mitchell, who completed his
leg of the 4x400 relay semifinal on a broken leg, allowing his team to qualify
and win silver.
"It was a dream for a sports-lover like me," Rogge
said of the two weeks of competition.
Coe said the closing ceremony didn't aim to be profound, not
even the irreverent romp through British history offered by Danny Boyle's $42
million spectacle on opening night.
The theme for the close, Coe said, could be summed up in
three words. "Party. Party. Party."
London organizers tried to keep the ceremony under wraps,
but photographs of their rehearsals, in an old car plant in east London, made
the British papers almost daily.
The show was to include performances of 30 British hit
singles from the past five decades -- whittled by Gavin from a list of 1,000
songs. Gavin said Saturday the show have a soundtrack ranging from
late Edward Elgar, composer of the "Pomp and Circumstance" march, to
The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset." Frontman Ray Davies performed the 1960s
song, a love letter to London.
While creators of the opening ceremony could rehearse for
weeks inside the stadium, Gavin and his team had less than a day between the
end of track and field competition and Sunday's ceremony before 80,000 people.
Even as spectators filed in early Sunday evening, performers
did final run-throughs, including actor-comedian Russell Brand in a top hat
aboard a psychedelic magical mystery tour bus. Jets of steam shot up from the
stage as dancers in warmup clothes shimmied and shook.
Britons seemed exhausted and exhilarated after two glorious
weeks in the world's spotlight, and just months after the country celebrated
the queen's 60th year on the throne with a magnificent pageant and street
parties.
Some at Olympic Park acknowledged happy surprise that not
much had gone wrong, and so much had gone right.
"I was a bit worried we wouldn't be able to live up to
it," said Phil Akrill of Chichester. "But walking around here it's
just unbelievable."
Even non-Brits were proud of their adopted homeland.
"It's just been a really nice thing to see," said
Anja Ekelof, a Swede who now lives in Scotland. "The whole country has
come together."
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