It all started with the Asian Games Torch Relay. These last few months the torch has travelled almost 40,000 miles across this vast continent. I saw it first a month ago in Beijing when we were out there starting to plan the London handover ceremony.
Since then it has excited millions of people on its way back home to Qatar earlier this week. On Wednesday I joined a slightly anarchic convoy of people as it weaved its way through the fast changing streets of Doha.
It represents the most amazing logistical challenge and I’m in awe of the team that keeps it running day after day, street after street, vast crowd after vast crowd. There is something primeval about the simple message of a flaming torch – it transcends language, culture and national borders – and it’s made me think all the more about the wonderful opportunity we’ll have with the London torch in 2012.
The culmination of the relay was earlier tonight when the same flame arrived in the Kalifa Stadium. The opening ceremony and the cauldron itself were amongst the most astonishing I’ve ever seen – a mix of cutting edge, big bucks technology and elegant Arab myth.
It climaxed with a fine Arabian stallion galloping up the steepest face of an enormous grandstand, its rider hanging on to horse and flaming torch to ignite not just the cauldron, but a gasping crowd and the whole of the fifteenth Asian Games.
How I wish I could stay on for the closing ceremony in two weeks time, but a 4am check-in at the airport beckons…..
My Olympics
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