Cayman opens Athens show
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from August 2004.
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The 11-member team, led by flag bearer Cydonie Mothersill, was not the smallest of the 202 countries said to be competing of the 2004 Olympic Games. That honour went Djibouti, which was represented by the flag bearer only.
All of Cayman's representatives agreed that the pageantry of the opening ceremony was nothing less than spectacular.
"The opening ceremony was fantastic," said Chef de Mission Annie Mae Roffey.
Cydonie Mothersill said she thought the opening ceremony was great and she was pleased to have led the delegation.
"I really enjoyed the feeling of leading our team. It was an electrifying spectacle."
The 11 who marched were Continued on page 2 from page 1
Cydonie, Kareen Street-Thompson, Rayle Roberts, Kenrick Williams, Louis Massicotte, Dave Kelsheimer, Dominic Ross, Marcy McGaw, Heather Roffey, Shaune Fraser and Annie Mae Roffey.
Athens, the birth place of the Olympics, intricately linked the old with the new in the programme. Organisers paid homage to Greece's past with a march through the millennia, culminating in an enthusiastic welcome to the athletes of all the world's nations competing in these Games.
The ceremony combined technology with simple and strong images from myth and history, from the Bronze Age to the revival of the Olympics in 1896 and to modern day.
The Greeks and Caymanians have something in common - water. Much of Greece's history is dominated by water. And when, during the ceremony, a young boy floated across a midfield pond in a white paper-looking sail boat, the spectators seemed awestruck.
As one Greek put it, "The opening ceremony was just perfect." One of the central pieces of the show was the huge replica of the head of a Cycladic idol which, according to Greek history, is the first sculpture in human civilization.
The Cycladic statue rose out of the water that covered the stadium floor and began disintegrating slowly, revealing more of Greece's long history.
The crowd, said to number 72,000, was warm on the windless night, giving a standing ovation to Iraq's delegation and cheering for North and South Korea as they marched into the stadium as one. However, the Greeks received the warmest welcome, which seemed to last for more than five minutes. While this show should have been the host country's night to bask in glory, a shadow had been cast over the Games because two of their top athletes, Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, have been caught up in what seems to be a doping scan. dal. Both failed to be available for a International Olympic Committee doping control test.
The problem was compounded when the two athletes reportedly got in a motorcycle accident. Kenteris and Thanou had been slated to carry the torch to its final destination.
tion. Instead, Loannis Melissanidis handed the torch to Nikolaos Kaklamanakis, a Greek windsurfer, who lit the flame in a bittersweet moment for the Athens Olympic Committee.
