Peter FitzSimons: Let the good times roll

COMMENT

No, I don't want to talk about the Bledisloe Cup match in Sydney last week. No, I don't want to talk about how our blokes ran your blokes ragged in a magnificent game and achieved the victory they so richly deserved in front of 70,000 cheering Australians to even the series at 1-1.

No, I don't want to talk about how the relatively close score actually flattered the All Blacks.

For that is last week's news of great Australian sporting triumphs, and now we're looking at this week's triumphs.

Which brings me to me. For, as a matter of fact, I am here at the Athens Olympics. I know, I know, I am surprised too. A few weeks ago I was only the 112th reserve for the Australian Olympic cycling team.

Oh all right, I am actually here as a journalist, but the main thing is I am indeed here, and we may as well get started by covering the Olympics opening ceremony which, by my calculations, will be under way right about the time you are reading this.

Naturally, no column on opening ceremonies is complete without recalling the greatest of all time, and I refer, of course, to the one President Ronald Reagan presided over at the opening of the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.

Who can forget how the young man bearing the Olympic torch had just run past Reagan up the stairs to light the Olympic flame, when the President swaggered to the podium with that very, very, vague look on his face.

The Olympic flag is waving in the breeze before him as he starts: "Mmm," he says, uncertainly. "Errrr, uhhhhh." Then there is a tiny crackle over the airwaves, as the director respectfully hisses at him: "Mr President, Mr President, just read your cue cards, Mr President."

With a sudden surge of confidence, Reagan starts anew: "Ohhhh, Ohhhh, Ohhhhhh", he says, before the director interrupts him again.

"Mr President, you dickhead, you're reading the Olympic flag!"

Hey, I got a million of 'em!

Seriously, while I have no idea what the opening ceremony is like, I think I can already say these Games are likely to be a great success.

I have been here for only five days, but it is already clear that despite all of our worthy journalistic prognostications about traffic snarl-ups, grumpy Greeks and unfinished stadia, none of that has been the case so far.

Instead, the locals are charming, the city seems blissfully free and easy to move around in, and all the stadia and Olympic facilities I've seen seem complete, even if there is something of a sense that the landscapers probably finished their job last Tuesday (I promise you, don't lean against that seemingly sturdy tree over there. I did and it fell over).

It's still early days of course, but so far the whole thing reminds me of our experience in Sydney. For two years leading up to it we read and wrote only of the problems: the ticket fiasco, the budget blow-outs, the traffic jams - and yet once the Games had actually begun, there was barely another word about these issues.

So may it be with these Games. One way or another, the vibe in the air is so good, so positive in a way I never remember it being in Atlanta in 1996, that I feel certain a splendid fortnight awaits.

And remember, you are to cheer for us when the Australians win, and we will cheer equally loudly for you, and us, when the Australasians win.

* Rugby writer Peter FitzSimons is a former Wallaby lock