The eyes of the world will be on London for the Opening
Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games today with Nigeria taking part in the
event.
The ceremony will provide an
opportunity for the world to view the culture of the host city and the UK and
that of all participating countries including Nigeria.
Your ever reliable medium CKN Nigeria will be shifting
base from tomorrow to give all our readers a day to day in-depth analysis of
the event LIVE from London, especially those area not fully covered by the conventional
media.
Certain elements must feature in
every Olympic opening ceremony, as outlined in the International Olympic
Committee charter and today in London, there is expectation that the hosts will
go beyond what the world witnessed in Beijing.
For the London 2012 Olympics opening
ceremony, Her Majesty the Queen will be greeted by Jacques Rogge, President of
IOC.
A procession of the participating
teams will follow which will be done in alphabetical order, after which
speeches will be delivered. The session ends with the invitation of the Queen
to officially declare the Games open.
A total of 15,000 people will perform
in the London 2012 opening ceremony, which will be watched by an estimated
audience of four billion.
The Team Nigeria ended its
preparation for the ceremony on Thursday with the position of flag bearer
changing hands. Instead of Usman Maryam, Boltic Sinivie – a 96kg freestyle
wrestler-will carry Nigerian flag later today.
The change came after a meeting held
Thursday afternoon at the Games Village. Deputy Chef de Mission for the
country, Al-Hassan Yakmut, said the change became necessary after Maryam’s
coach suggested that she was better off not playing that role in view of her
early competition on Saturday following the opening event .
Yakmut said, “The opening ceremony is
going to stretch into the early morning of Saturday and Maryam will be fighting
soon after the ceremony. It is for strategic reasons. We don’t want to wear her
out in the ceremonies.
“Boltic is not new to events like
this. He has been around and has won several medals for Nigeria at
international events’’ he said.
The change is limited to that of the
flag bearer for the march past. Team Captain remains the same as the Beijing
Olympics bronze medallist, Chika Chukwumerije.