London 1948.  The last World War had only been over for three years.  To a significant  extent London still lay in ruins as a result of that war and it was a daring idea to ask a country that had been bankrupted and almost destroyed by an aggressive enemy  to host an Olympic Games.  And yet the United Kingdom welcomed  the choice by an Olympic committee that had not yet become  a group of old boys, most of whom had dubious  expertise in the area of amateur sports.  After all, this was not an overly expensive event and  the UK deserved the chance to show that it had survived the war with its basic values intact.   Thus London hosted the Olympics and  put them on in venues which, for the most part, had survived the bombings well enough to be used for sporting events.  All the participants were really amateurs, were asked to bring their own  personal items for the dormitory rooms that they slept in, were fed fn large part by donated food, and of course received no money for any medals they might win.  Security was provided by the Boy Scouts.  Film of the opening ceremonies capture the excitement when  a single runner ran up a staircase with a torch and lit the  flame which seemed to carry the hope that the future would be better than the immediate past.
Skip ahead 64 years to the spectacle witnessed on  tv by several billion people on the weekend.  It cost something like 30 million dollars, had 10,000 extras milling about in what apparently was meant to be the history of the British isles , featured an  Irish actor, dressed like one of the sleazy doctors or lawyers  from an Ibsen play and surrounded by rising polluting smokestacks while quoting from The Tempest of all things and waxing on about the edenic isle of Blake.  This eden was then highlighted by a 20 minute segment set in a gigantic hospital ward full of dancing nurses and hopping sick children.   British culture was represented by Sir Simon Rattle and the London Philharmonic attempting to play the theme song from Chariots of Fire with Rattle playing straight man to Mr. Bean.  Unfortunately the designers of this apparent nod to the British bureaucracy and humour failed to include a nod to the Ministry of Silly Walks.  Where are the Pythons when you need them?  Even the queen who was a princess soon to become a queen in 1948 agreed to make her acting debut in  a comic role with James Bond that involved her jumping out of a helicopter.  And later was that really Daniel Barenboim carrying in one section of the Olympic flag?  My how the mighty  lowered themselves for this spectacle.
In the Parade of Nations that interminably followed, athletes making many millions of dollars walked in alongside amateurs making nothing who had no chance of competing even half-serioiously with the millionaires.  Cannon-fodder.  How that will work out can be witnessed tomorrow when the so-called US dream team plays basketball against Tunisia.  No odds were being given by the ubiquitous gambling spots that the Tunisians would beat the US multi-millionaires.  Even at a million to one there was no chance.  Whatever happened to the Olympics of 1948?  As if to answer this question, the Olympic flame was lit this time by an enormously expensive and technically  impressive machine that  ignited a cauldron of fire that cannot be seen from outside the stadium into which almost no mortals succeeded in buying  a ticket.  That’s what has happened. The Olympics have been turned into a celebration of money and kitsch, and cannot be saved if its organizers don’t turn it back over to the amateur sportspeople and the general public who would like to see them compete beneath a flame that has a completely different meaning than it has today.