London Summer Olympics 2012 It was a spectacular event on Friday 27th July as the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics got under way. They called it the "Isles of Wonder". The Oscar winning director Danny Boyle was its artistic director, with music directors being the electronic music duo of Rick Smith and Karl Hyde of Underworld. The 2012 Olympic Games were officially opened by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, and accompanied by Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. It was the second Olympic Games the Queen had opened personally, the first being the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada. A short comic film starring Daniel Craig as secret agent James Bond and the Queen as herself was screened during the ceremony, Live musical performers included Frank Turner, Mike Oldfield, London Symphony Orchestra (accompanied by Rowan Atkinson), Dizzee Rascal, Arctic Monkeys and Sir Paul McCartney, who performed the song "Hey Jude" at the end of the ceremony. The official BARB ratings give the opening ceremony a rating of 24.24 million viewers, the highest audience for any British television broadcast since 1996. There are around 10,500 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees estimated to take part, and therefore will surpass the 1948 Summer Olympics in London and the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, as the largest multi sport event ever to be held in the United Kingdom |
