Youth Olympic Games: mrbrown checks out 'the greatest show on earth'

The dark clouds gathered over the Floating Platform at Marina Bay and taunted us with some raindrops as my buddy Marc and I queued for our goodie bags. No, we were not here for the National Day Parade (NDP), we were here for the Youth Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. 

In many ways, Singapore has been rehearsing for this event for the last 45 years. Our years of producing the NDP with all the unified marching, mass performances and fireworks displays finally paid off because this time, Singapore was putting on a show for the whole world to see.

I dug into my goodie bag for a raincoat, and amidst the good stuff like a Dove-shaped light stick, bottle of mineral water, muffin, plastic mini-flags and temporary tattoos, there it was, the disposable raincoat. They think of everything.

But the rain decided not to fall, and the dark clouds passed the 27,000 spectators with a merciful hand. Someone has been busy with the chillies and onions, me thinks.

We found our seats on the far left of the stands, and after the pre-show rah-rah to whip up crowd enthusiasm, the "greatest show on earth" began at 8:10 p.m. (20:10 hours, 2010 geddit?).

In the front rows of each section, young cheerleaders helped to keep the crowd spirits high. The two kids in our section danced, cheered, and waved their flags all night. I was most impressed by their enthusiasm and energy. In fact, Marc later remarked that he felt tired just watching them.

The "chapters" proceeded one after another. I like the one where they played with fire. A little girl came out and waved a giant lit match around the stage lit up with flames in sync with her movements. Fire dancers came out to perform too. I did, however, have to tell my young son and daughter back home, who watched it on tv, that they should not play with fire in real life.

One thing we had to get used to was the French narration. The entire show was conducted in French and English. Why? Maybe the whole world mainly speaks French and English?

The flags of the nations segment was the most boring part. As the list of countries participating in the events was read out, the flag bearers would march into place. They started at the letter A and the crowd cheered for the first few countries but lost interest by "Azerbaijan", only cheering for soccer nations they recognized (S is for Spain! Rooooaaaaar!).

The loudest cheers were for the last flag, Singapore. The spontaneous eruption, my cheers included, surprised me.

Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt made an appearance to welcome everyone to Singapore and to the first Youth Olympic Games… on video. Sean Kingston, one of the five singers of the bland YOG theme song, "Everyone," was AWOL from the opening ceremony (rumor says it was due a disagreement over fees, but official reason was "passport mix-up").

Each singer was supposed to represent one of the five continents. I think the other four "continents" did a fine job singing the song without the Americas and thankfully, the opening ceremony did not feature the awful YOG cheer "You Are the One, Singapore" (a.k.a. "The Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah Song")

As usual, there were fireworks aplenty for this show. In fact, I think they must have used up five NDPs worth of fireworks for it. That alone made it worthwhile to pay the S$30 (US$42) to S$200 (US$280) to watch the show. Mind you, you still had to ballot for a chance to even buy the tickets.

The finale was the arrival of the Olympic flame, which came in a giant floating, er, fowl, complete with blinking lights. Then runners took the Olympic torch from the RSS Olympian Chicken and ran the final relay to the giant cauldron on the stage.

I was a little worried for the runners, because the ground was wet, and I am sure they must have been thinking "Don't trip, don't fall down, don't drop the Olympic flame in front of live tv…"

I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw the final runner, sailor Darren Choy, running safely across the reflecting pool of water to light up the cauldron, beautifully shaped like a lighthouse.

I thought the cauldron was a really nice touch. Though my smart-assed blogger friend Benjamin Lee (a.k.a. Mr Miyagi) commented on Twitter that it would be a good place to burn hell money for the Hungry Ghosts too. The YOG happens to fall on the Seventh Month, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell are open for deceased descendants to visit the living. That kind of put me off the lighthouse cauldron a little.

I reserved my loudest cheers for Mr Tan Howe Liang, our first Olympics medalist, who was one of the flag bearers of The Olympic flag. In the hearts of most Singaporeans, he is still the biggest Olympics hero of them all, when he won the silver medal in weightlifting at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.

In this age where a Singaporean athlete stands to gain S$1 million (US$715,000) for winning a gold medal at the Olympics, Mr Tan got diddly squat for his win in 1960. So it was nice to see the man who brought Singapore its first Olympics medal at the front of the flag.

After the ceremony was over, we had to wait for the officials, VIPs and athletes to leave before we could. Over the PA, an announcer helpfully told us that City Hall MRT station is likely to be crowded and suggested other stations for us to take. Marc and I obediently walked the longer way to Raffles Place MRT station, where we could use our Opening Ceremony tickets for free train rides to go home.

The trains ran till 1:30 a.m. because of this ceremony. If only they do that for the rest of the year as well. Maybe run 24 hours, like some cities. But that, my friends, is an Olympian task for another day.