Chicken feet for the Soul

WE marveled at the high-tech, high-wire spectacle at the Bird’s Nest last week, but for yours truly nothing still beats the Olympic opening ceremony of the 1992 Games in Barcelona, where an archer shot a flaming arrow into the night sky to light up the towering cauldron.  So low-tech (actually no-tech at all), the whole act relied solely on sheer marksmanship, yet it makes you wonder why nobody had ever thought of doing it that way before. It also had an element of real danger which no mechanical contraption or computer program could override: what if the archer missed? A low, wayward shot would have impaled – and instantly barbecued – some unlucky hombre in the bleachers.  Or the arrow could have gone over the stadium, probably torching somebody’s car in the parking lot.

 

My memory of watching Olympic inaugurals on TV could only go as far back as the 1984 Los Angeles Games. (Only much later, thanks to YouTube, did I get to see the 1980 Moscow ceremonies, which mainly involved thousands of cardboard-flipping Soviets.)  Expectedly, the LA cauldron lighting had some Hollywood thrown in: The flame first traveled a route tracing the Five Rings of the Olympic logo before igniting the cauldron. The timing, however, diminished the intended ‘’wow’’ effect; they did it while it was still daytime, hence the flame was only faintly visible in the afternoon light.

 

The 1988 Seoul opener was also a daytime affair and involved three torch bearers who were simultaneously elevated to the top of the cauldron tower. Accounts later told of several doves — which were released earlier in the ceremony but decided to hang around and found a good perch on the edges of the cauldron – being roasted on the spot by the sudden burst of flame.

 

As to the 1996 Games in Atlanta, the only memorable scene for me was that of Muhammad Ali as he took hold of the torch, his hand and body shaking because of Parkinson’s. At the 2000 Sydney Games, the cauldron was initially concealed in a pool of water, and once set ablaze it slowly rose into final position atop a cascading waterfall. Things even got simpler in Athens 2004: a giant torch was made to bend over to draw the flame from the final runner, before slowly returning to upright position.

 

And then last ‘8-8-08,’ the Beijing Games tried to top them all with video wall technology rendered in jaw-dropping scale and suspension-cable acrobatics (a staple of kung fu movies) done in graceful slow motion.

 

But for the coolest, most elegant cauldron lighting ever, my vote would still go to the unerring archer of Barcelona.

 

Which finally brings us to the day’s obvious question: If we Pinoys are to host the Olympics someday, how are we going to light things up at opening night?

Here are some early suggestions:

 

- For maximum thrill and dramatic effect, shoot the flaming arrow from the bow of a Sulpicio Lines ship – seconds before the vessel sinks and disappears completely in the dark waters of Manila Bay.  The identity of the archer, of course, is to remain a mystery since he’s not on the ship’s manifest.

 

- Another second-hand Chinese import wouldn’t hurt, anyway, so why not just buy the same cauldron used in Beijing? With the right broker and a few rounds of golf, maybe we could even secure soft loans and afford the used cauldron plus the flame, too.

 

- For good measure, give the torch bearer his (or her) ‘’cut’’ from the cauldron deal to make sure he would finish the job. If he turns it down and threatens to blow the whistle, initiate a smear job by, say, leaking to the press his secret, smelly case of athlete’s foot. If a replacement is in order, just take a pick among old, tested allies from the long roster of has-been torch bearers.

 

- Should the torch bearer still prove unreliable down the stretch, the President can always make an urgent phone call to somebody manning a ‘’Fire On / Fire Off’’ switch wired to the cauldron from an undisclosed location.

 

- But then, we can always aspire for a clean, graft-free lighting ceremony. Just set off a piece of watusi in the middle of the stadium, and with enough street rallies and pastoral letters to boost our collective will, hope that this watusi would somehow find its way and jump right into the cauldron.

 

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