Joonas Kuisma’s comment: The opening of the Olympic Games was a horrible nightmare

Predazzo

Extreme grand farce. Perfect lamination. The most unsuccessful thing the Italians have come up with since then is a designer kettle that squirts boiling water past the cup like a sprinkler stirred by the heat.

These things came to mind when I watched the “satellite opening” of the Milan-Cortina Olympics on the Predazzo hill.

The races and the opening ceremonies were distributed all over Northern Italy. The grand opening was celebrated at Milan’s San Siro. There was a second party in Cortina. At the Predazzo ski jumping stadium, there was then a kind of spare skates spare skates type of event.

I wish there had been someone who had created the expression – spare skates spare skates Hannu Jortikka. Or even Jussi Lammen the legendary time machine show from the 2005 World Championships in Athletics.

Disappointment signs met the party guest well in advance. We walked to Mäkimonttu for long stretches in the dark like Mikkeli’s Jukurei matches to the Let’s go arena in Kalevankanka.

After all, in Mikkeli you can see really good hockey.

Nothing was seen in Predazzo!

The first 45 minutes of the opening consisted of the audience being shown the Milan opening on a screen that was hundreds of meters away from the stands. And not particularly big.

That’s when we, the audience, sat down and thought about the choices we’ve made in life.

Music, among other things by Laura Pausin sung by the Italian national anthem, could be heard over the loudspeakers.

All that had been achieved in Predazzo was eight light spots on top of the large and normal hill. In addition, during the national anthem, the flag of the host country was projected onto the descent slope.

The ushers had also been taught a clumsy choreography, which they danced presumably to avoid freezing.

You would have gotten at least one cellist or an Italo disco star who has been washed out for a while.

But no.

In the middle of the stadium stood an Olympic ring, which looked a bit like a horseshoe standing in the yard of Tuuri’s village store. Or that’s how one of Yleisradio’s veteran reporters described it.

After staring at the small screen for so long that the toes were frozen, the Olympic teams started to go through the horseshoe.

Cross-country skier Krista Pärmäkoski led Finland elegantly through the horseshoe, nothing in that.

After this, the biggest fun was a drunken, glühwein-drenched Italian man who always shouted the name of the introduced country.

Then:

”Ireland.”

“Irelandh!”

I left to warm up. Behind the stadium I was greeted by a disconsolate sight. The teams waiting for their turn stood in line in an area resembling a parking lot under the sky. The temperature was already a few degrees below zero. It would still take a long time for the teams to get to the village merchant’s horseshoe.

I went to ask the representative of the organizer that after the march of the teams something else will happen here, or if we will watch TV outside all evening.

“Yes, I guess this is here,” the organizer said.

I didn’t stay to find out.

Two hours of creepy “spectacle” was enough.

I’ve never seen anything this bad.