Saturday, July 20, 1996

Ali ignites passionless Opening Ceremonies

By JIM O'LEARY
At the Olympics ATLANTA -- For 100 years, it has survived wars, boycotts, scandals and acts of terrorism. And after the splendid grand finale to last night's Opening Ceremony, it's beginning to look as if the Olympics might even survive the bumbling of Atlanta.
Organizers, assailed constantly in recent days by criticism, came out stinging like a bee as the pomp that accompanied the opening of the 26th Summer Olympiad took an unexpected last-minute twist.
All week, organizers had kept Atlanta guessing about who would have the honour of lighting the Olympic flame. The list of possible candidates was long, but at no time included perhaps the most well known and loved athlete of all time, Muhammad Ali.
Yet it was Ali who took the torch from three-time Olympian Janet Evans and, his hands shaking from the ravages of Parkinson's Disease, leaned over to tentatively ignite the symbolic flame. It was the one emotional moment in a night strangely devoid of passion.
Ali, boxing gold medallist at the 1960 Rome Olympics, ignited not only the flame, he lit up a sell-out crowd of 83,000 at Atlanta's new Olympic Stadium. Until then, the reaction to the festivities, in a city becoming notorious for its heat, was surprisingly cool.
Maybe it's too difficult to clap with a fan in one hand and a Bud in the other. Whatever the reason, not even the parade of athletes into the stadium got anything better than limp applause, the exception, of course, being when the U.S. team was led onto the field.
Up until the American entrance, the low-key ceremonies had been refreshingly void of any hint of the blatant U.S. jingoism that made the 1984 opening in Los Angeles about as hard to stomach as a pint of curdled milk. The Atlantans opted for a kinder, gentler ceremony than the Hollywood production choreographed when the Eastern Block boycotted L.A. and Ronald Reagan's America answered by thinly disguising a single finger in glove of pageantry.
But much has change since '84.
When President Bill Clinton officially declared the Games open at 12:02 a.m., he ushered in the largest, richest, most commercialized Games ever. For the first time, no nation turned down its invitation to attend, resulting in 197 delegations participating in last night's ceremony. No boycotts meant more than 10,000 athletes are in Atlanta, sharing the same village, the same fields of competition and the same dreams.
The Canadian team was led into the stadium by runner Charmaine Crooks. An Olympian for the fifth time, she won a silver in relay in 1984 but is not expected to win one this time. But opening ceremonies are the one night when all Olympians are equal. Not even Shaq O'Neal looked any better or richer than anyone else.
The opening ceremony is the one occasion over the next 16 days when the humidity will give way to humility. Inside the Olympic Stadium, there are no corporate banners, no billboards, no commercials. The IOC, for all its faults, deserves some credit for repelling the corporate invaders. For one night, we can forget that the IOC peddles just about everything else associated with the modern Games that Baron Pierre-de Coubertin revived 100 years ago.
Crooks led a Canadian team of 153 men and 154 women that is expected to win 15-20 medals. They arrived wearing unattractive beige outfits. Despite hot, muggy conditions, the women wore long skirts, long sleeves and vests; the men had long pants and sportscoats. They apparetly left their toques and mittens at the village.
The uniforms bore striking resemblance to those worn by the Bulgarians, who paraded into the stadium before Canada and at least could make them claim that they had first dibs on the outfits.
As the Canadians entered, the stadium scoreboard zeroed in on Prime Minister Jean Chretien waving from the stands. Despite the odd choice of Team Canada's apparel, Chretien would witness a good night for Canada. Canadians Celine Dion and David Foster teamed up to perform a song co-written by Foster and Kenny Edmunds called the Power of the Dream.
But perhaps the best thing about any Olympic Opening Ceremony is that it signals the end of the hype. Today the athletes take over. No matter how extravagant the ceremony, how uplifting the sight of Ali was, it is merely the appetizer to the feast of competition that will unfold over the next 16 days.
Jim O'Leary is Executive Producer of SLAM! Sports (www.canoe.ca/slam)