A wonderful Games opening, but ...

By DAVID LEGGAT

The twin imperatives of maintaining tradition while ensuring athletes' well-being surfaced at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony yesterday.

By the time the baton was handed to the Queen at the high point of a bright and uplifting ceremony in the City of Manchester Stadium, the athletes of 72 countries had been standing about on a cool night for almost four hours.

By the time they had returned to their Games Village, another two hours had passed. That did not impress New Zealand's chef de mission, Dave Currie, who had his fingers crossed none of his squad woke up the worse for wear.

Commonwealth Games tradition has the athletes in the centre of the stadium after their march-past while the ceremonial aspects of the opening are observed.

Currie believes it is time to find an alternative. "They say they're focused on the needs of the athletes. They're not."

Currie maintains that if that were true, there would be an alternative to the existing situation.

Worries over health issues and events starting the next morning led a number of New Zealand athletes to choose not to march.

They included the women's hockey team, who began their programme less than a day later, and the divers, whose competition started a few hours before the ceremony.

"We've worked very hard to provide an environment for athletes to excel. It [the opening ceremonny] is too long, and has the potential for athletes to have a negative experience.

"The organisers say the ceremony is going to fire them up, but you're getting home no earlier than 12.30am. It doesn't add up."

Currie hopes a solution is found in time for the next Games, in Melbourne in 2006, where officials are known to have been looking hard at the opening ceremony format.

One possible option - which has been used in winter Olympics, albeit invariably held in a colder climate than yesterday - is for the athletes to be given a seating allocation after arriving in the centre of the stadium.

That would give the option of leaving immediately after the march or staying to the end.

While Currie's concerns are valid, tradition is a key ingredient in the Games and getting a shift in thinking from the Commonwealth Games Federation is unlikely to be easy.

Those New Zealand team members who did march were armed with umbrellas, but they were not required and the night lacked the chill of the previous few.

This is just a personal thing, but I find the Mexican wave immensely irritating.

And when a crowd then applauds the quality of the wave at the opposite end of a stadium, it seems plain barmy.

So when the capacity 38,000 crowd launched forth, a full 57 minutes before the opening ceremony was due to start, it looked like a long night.

What's worse, the television presenter who doubled as the warm-up act before the telecast went global, then actually encouraged the crowd to do it again shortly before the official start of proceedings.

Things looked grim, but as it transpired everything was okay on the night.

The opening to the 17th edition of what is always billed the "Friendly Games" had a bit of something for everyone.

The British love a bit of pomp and pageantry. Cue the Queen and the Nijmegen Company Grenadier Guards.

The welcome for the monarch was warm and genuine. This was not a night for those of republican tendencies.

For the modern music lovers, the march past of the nations was done to the accompaniment of a selection of music and a tempo and a light show which reeked, in the right way, of a giant discotheque.

The crowd loved it, and in turn an infectious quality spread round the stadium.

They were on their feet for most of the 54-minute entrance, gaily cheering and clapping as countries many of them would doubtless struggle to pinpoint on a world map - try Tuvalu, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Kiribati and Anguilla for starters - strode round the impressive, visually appealing stadium.

New Zealand, squeezed between Nauru and Nigeria, made their presence felt with a haka in front of the royal box.

Classical singing star Russell Watson sang a stirring tribute to the athletes, flags were raised and the competitors' oath taken by local lad, and English swimming hope, Jamie Hickman, before the arrival of the Queen's baton, which was brought into the stadium by an aerial messenger who was suspended from a giant pink helium balloon and performed an aerial ballet 60m over the heads of athletes below.

So all in all a rip-roaring start. All uplifting and with just the right mix. Something for all tastes.

Rather like the Games themselves.

As for the competition programme, New Zealand diver Anna Thomas was involved in the opening event earlier in the day.

The Auckland-based student reached the semifinals of the one-metre springboard event before being eliminated. The first gold medal went to Russian-born Australian Irina Lashko.

Full coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/manchester2002

Commonwealth Games info and related links