By Olamide Jasanya
Sunday, August 12, 2012 is one that will linger for a while in the memories of organisers, participants and audience of the just concluded 2012 summer Olympic games which took place in London, U.K.
The event which lasted for 16 days was officially opened on Friday, July 27, 2012 in a grand ceremony which featured the age long traditional march past session of the over 200 participating countries. Over 300 field, track and swimming competitions took place while the event lasted, USA emerging as overall winner with a total of 104 medals. China was next with 87 and Britain, 85 while Russia and Korea came fourth and fifth with a total of 82 and 28 medals respectively.
Michael Phelps form U.S.A was the athlete with the most medals, winning six in all.
The closing ceremony played host to a 80,000 crowd, hosting celebrities and eminent personalities including Prince Williams and wife, Kate. Emilie Sande, Madness, George Michael, Jessie J, Ed Sheeran all performed different numbers. The ceremony also featured a fashion show which had supermodels Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss as participants.
The glamorous event was choreographed by Kim Garvin, Es Devlin, music director, David Arnold and Stephen Daldry as the executive producer. Over 4,000 performers, including 3,500 adults, 380 school children and 250 proffessionals were involved in the ceremony.
The 2016 edition will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil while cities Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid have been shortlisted for the 2020 edition.
The origin of the summer Olympics games dates back as far as the 8th century Olympia games but was renamed after historian, Baron Pierre Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894.
