All the Best Eddie!

Calgary 1988 Opening Ceremony Highlights



If you have recently enjoyed the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, then why not compare and contrast with the last Winter Olympics in Canada? Also situated in the west of the country, Calgary welcomes the world to all favourite quad-annually portions of Downhill Skiing, the Ski Jump, Slalom, Bobsleigh, Speed Skating, Ice Skating, Biathlon, the Luge and Curling. I'm sure I've missed a few others.

We're sure they have full explainations, but the Opening Ceremony highlights consist of dancing dinosaurs breaking out of eggs, Canadian cowboy drum/percussion bands, celebrating the heritage of the state, you know, some more cowboys, Native Indians and not forgetting lasso artists. Balloons of every colour rage into the sky. You can tell by now, compared to recent Opening Ceremonys, are alot more linear, less artistic in production, but dammit when you think about, these tough sports don't really need fluff around the ears to advertise them really.

12 year old figure skater Robyn Perry, lights the Olympic flame. Of course, she did not compete in the actual competition.

Held in Calgary, Alberta the 15th Winter Olympics was held at McMahon stadium. The stadium wasn't built exclusively for the Olympics, as it has been a Canadian Football stadium. Canadian Football is somewhat similar to American Football -they cheat with their hands- but has a larger playing field and a different number of men in a team.

These are highlights of the Opening Ceremony, however also on Youtube, some wonderful person indeed, has uploaded it, in it's full entirety, 33 parts infact. Now I only want to whet your appetite, because I will posting quite a bit more about more Winter Olympics videos in the days and weeks to come.

This is an highlights clip of the opening ceremony, which is not as impressive as Canada's recent effort, but still here for archives sake. The 1988 Olympics contained some amazing achievements, not forgetting the fact, that the host country failed to win a gold medal. However, us Brits think about the tail-end, or the bottom rung of the talent in this edition, our Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, Britain's best ski-jumper at the time, and the celebrated but unlucky Jamaican Bobsleigh team.