Page 80 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Televised Sport • 69

the opening ceremony, which Tomlinson (2000: 168) described (in relation to Mu-

hammad Ali’s lighting of the Olympic flame in the Atlanta ceremony) as reaching
‘unknown heights of collective catharsis. It brought a lump to the throat.’
One of the most controversial opening ceremonies was the 2002 Winter Olympics
in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the United States, which occurred months after the 11 Sep-
tember 2001 aircraft hijacking and terrorist attacks in New York and Washington,
D.C. The setting for the event was the frozen arena of the Rice-Eccles Stadium of
the University of Utah. The ceremony commenced with a series of individual skaters
dressed in historical costumes crossing the ice carrying a flag for each of the host cit-

ies of the previous Winter Games. The connotative impact of the sequence combined
continuity with difference. The current Games were positioned within a tradition
evoked by the nostalgic memorialisation of past events. The variations in the cos-
tumes and sport disciplines of the skating athletes conveyed the distinction of each
Olympics, culminating in the present. Following the sequence of skaters, the ‘differ-
ence’ provided by the Salt Lake City Games was underscored by the unprecedented
exhibition of patriotic symbolism encoded into the display of the American fl ag that

flew at the World Trade Center on 11 September. The torn and battered flag was car-

ried into the stadium by noted American athletes, members of the New York City po-
lice and fire departments and the New York City Port Authority. The soundscape that

surrounded the events went from solemn silence to the Utah Symphony and Mormon
Tabernacle Choir’s traditional, controlled, classical orchestration of the American
national anthem. Images of President Bush, hand on heart, flanked by Jacques Rogge

(President of the IOC) and Mitt Romney (President and Chief Executive Offi cer of
the Salt Lake organising committee) were interspersed with shots of tears in the fl ag,
views of the stadium and close-ups of saluting uniformed personnel. Hogan (2003)
produced a critical reading of the visual and sonic signifiers in these scenes:

The segment was richly layered, evoking the divine through the use of the choir;
evoking the nation through its most potent symbol of nationhood, the fl ag; evok-
ing the power of the state through the presence of the enforcers of law and order;
and serving as homage to the victims of the September attacks. (p. 107)

In addition, Olympic sport became the vessel used to carry the accumulated signi-
fiers of power and nation. Sport framed the event.

The interpretative programme that followed the national anthem can also be read

as an ideological narrative of nation. The nation was figured as the ‘child of light’
skating through an icy storm, assisted by ‘the fire within’ to triumph over adversity.

Commentary accompanying the sequence emphasised that the young white boy in
this role was an ice hockey player, not a figure skater, who ‘has had to learn’, thereby

confirming his gender-appropriate sporting heritage. Hogan (2003: 116) pointed to

the gender and racial signification in this sequence: ‘White males personifi ed both

humanity/America (the child) and its will and drive (the fire within) [which] reveals