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Tonight's star-studded Olympic closing ceremony will feature David Beckham, Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame
While we aren't able to provide you with any spoilers like we did for the opening ceremony, executive vice president of NBC Olympics David Neal made his way to a college campus 90 minutes west of Beijing where secret rehearsals were being conducted and exclaimed, "It's just unlike any other closing ceremony I've ever seen." While Olympic closing ceremonies in the past are usually "a simple vehicle for extinguishing the Olympic flame and setting the stage for the next games", China under the charge of creative director Zhang Yimou has pulled out all the stops to "dazzle" the world with glittery shows and a "great deal of entertainment".
While most of the closing ceremony remains a secret, Andrew Cawthorne of Reuters says English footballer David Beckham will be "kicking a ball into the crowd from a red double-decker bus to symbolise the handover to London." The eight minute segment from London, host of the 2012 Games, will also feature Michael Phelps, Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame. Page's rock classic "Whole Lotta Love" has apparently been deemed too racy by Olympic organisers and had to be amended for the closing ceremony.
Xinhua also reports that viewers can expect a "kungfu display, featuring 350 practitioners from a local martial art school, would be part of the show, in addition to 60 erhu, or Chinese violin, players from eastern province of Jiangsu," although the cast of 7,000 will not include any of those 15,000 that were involved in the opening ceremony.
For those of you that want to watch the ceremony on Youtube's dedicated Olympic channel but aren't able to do so, one geek offers some practical advice how you can get around it by simply removing Youtube's geolocation cookie.
The ceremony starts at 8pm Beijing time, so remember to tune in!
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Will closing ceremony mean the start of British bashing by China? The answer is a definite NO, though they were screwed for 5 month because of the hijacked Olympic, while they only screwed West for a short 16 days.
Unlike narrow-mind westerners, China just treat the whole farce from March as a game of wisdom in which Daliar, Sarkozy, Merkel and Bushit are all losers. The only things they can do are to complain on made-in-china American Standard toilet when they cannot shit and standing on podiums listening to the Chinese national anthems played over for 51 times, lol!
Hello
Just wanted to say that I loved your Olympics, from beginning to end.
The 2012, here in London, will not compare in terms of scale and grandeur, but I hope you enjoy it differences.
2008 was wonderful.
The whole of England has enjoyed it immensely.
Thank you
OK that wasn't exactly a "dazzling" show. Or was it?
It was more like the opening ceremony. Overall, pretty good! The missus and I enjoyed it. Though I enjoyed nitpicking it more!
are they REALLY drumming? Are those REAL fireworks?
I'm sleeping on the sofa tonight. ;)
I was snickering to myself about "God Save the Queen" being sung at a venue in China. Hopefully, it's been enough time for all concerned! Otherwise, it was all terrific. As an american, I groan about us ever getting another Olympics: Atlanta was so awful and we just don't put the kind of money and effort into them that China has. China has many great big huge cities, let each one host a games!
eastman, you are warmly welcome to come to Britain. You will get visa, you will be able to demonstrate for your course as much as you like (Scotch independence? Abolition of monarchy? Free Ireland? Absence of heavy metals in food?) and you won't be beaten up by police or detained without trial.
I was dearly missing your comments on the matter of the pre-pubescent Chinese gymnasts. No official party-line on that one?
To Pirx,
Thanx for your invitation but been there n seen it. With half million CCTV and a new but not functional terminal, what else you can show except a shanty town London or Labeth slum that remind me of an old Shanghai 20 years ago?
But I still admire the achievement Brits made in the game, only hope they’ll score better in 2012, after pulling all your brightest athlets out of Basra fortress who are there for another game event. (Why don't you shout aloud as a good reason to be a loser?) Your Yank master must be grateful that, with your 19 gold, you have helped them beat demon commie bandit. Lol!
As to visa thing, you should worry for your government for the visa of at least 100,000 Yellow Chinese cheering groups who are eager to have a glimps of the real opium on 2012 openning. They’ll definitely be there in London, believe me, considering annoying 40% GDP increase from now on. But no worry for my visa. Well, when I was doing holiday in Arisag House some 3 years ago, you were still cursing your parents over your math work.