1982 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony

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The Opening Ceremony of the 1982 Commonwealth Games was held on September 30, 1982 at the QEII Stadium in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The ceremony was directed by Ric Birch.

[edit] Description

Matilda the Kangaroo mascot for the 1982 Commonwealth Games (shown here during her circuit of the track at the stadium during the Games Opening Ceremony, and with a silhouette of Matilda and several joey kangaroos on a large screen, during Rolf Harris' segment)

Matilda turns her head and winks during the Opening Ceremony of the 1982 Commonwealth Games

The music soundtrack of the Opening Ceremony of the 1982 Commonwealth Games, Brisbane, Queensland — (Audio tape cover). The pictures are of the 1982 Commonwealth Games Logo and Matilda, the 1982 Commonwealth Games Mascot

The opening ceremony was held during the afternoon of a fine and sunny, but extremely windy, day. A special Commonwealth Games song began the ceremony:

Opening Prelude / Commonwealth Games Song (Queensland Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Philharmonia Choir), with high school students performing intricate movements, including making the Brisbane Commonwealth Games logo", the "Australian flag", and a stylised "map of Australia".

There was then a march past by Surf Lifesavers to the following instrumental music and songs:

March Past (Queensland Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Philharmonia Choir)
Medley: instrumental music:

("The Drover's Dream" / "Brown Slouch Hat" /

"Click Go the Shears" / "The Overlanders")

"I Still Call Australia Home"
"Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport" / "Road to Gundagai"

The Surf Life-Savers were followed by a series of dances, within a stylised "map of Australia".

On the stylised map, the outline of Australia, only, was represented without any demarcation for individual states. This led to an unfortunate misunderstanding — because there was no demarcation between the states, there was no demarcation, either, to represent Bass Strait on the map, with this lack of demarcation unfortunately leading to the people of the state of Tasmania mistakenly assuming that their island state had been ignored.

The dances, within the map, included an ethnic folk dance medley of some of the countries from which some Australian people came. The dances were;

"Bomba" (Butterfly Dance}, which was sung and performed by Arnhem Land Aborigines
"Seri-Seri" (Sun Dance), which was sung and performed by The Torres Strait Islands Dance Group of Murray and Darnley
"Ethnic Dance Medley" (an original medley of 15 dances) — a Yugoslav hora, Irish soft shoe reel, Italian tarantella, Polynesian tamure, German schuhplatter, Spanish sevillanas, Filipino tinikling, Scottish country dance and Highland reel o'tulloch, Latin American los andinos, Sri Lankan havest dance, Polish polka, Greek pergousiko, Hungarian czardas and a Ukrainian gopak

The mascot for the Games was Matilda the Kangaroo — who was represented in both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Games by a "winking" Matilda — a gigantic-size 13-metre (42 feet 8 inches) high mechanical Kangaroo, who winked several times at the crowd as she went around the stadium, including winking at Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

When she arrived at the stadium, she 'winked' several at the crowd as she went around the stadium — then her 'pouch' opened and several young children (about 5 years old to 7 years old), dressed as joey kangaroos, rushed out (then ran to - and jumped on - a number of trampolines which had been set up especially for them) — while, Rolf Harris, who was standing, complete with wobble board, at the back of a small truck, sang a special rendition of his hit song "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", which included the added lyrics:

Let me welcome you to the Games, friends,

Welcome you to the Games

Look, I don't know all of your names, friends,

But let me welcome you to the Games,

Rolf Harris then sang a slow-paced version of the song "Waltzing Matilda".

The athetes then arrived for the athletes parade. When the team from the Falkland Islands entered the stadium, they received an enormous cheer from the crowd. The cheer was because of the, then, recently fought Falklands War.

The Commonwealth Games Ceremonial Flag was then brought into the stadium and raised. The athlete's oath was taken by Tracey Wickham.

The final runner in the Queen's Baton Relay was Raelene Boyle, who handed the baton to the Duke of Edinburgh. The Duke read out the message which Queen Elizabeth II had sent in the Queen's Baton, officially opening the Games (Prince Philip opened the Games because the Queen was unable to arrive in Australia in time to attend the Opening Ceremony).

Because the Opening Ceremony was held during daylight hours, there were no fireworks to accompany the ceremony. However, both doves and colourful balloons of red, white and blue, were released. There were also supposed to be parachute jumpers, with parachutes of red, white and blue, taking part during the display at the opening ceremony, with the parachute jumpers landing within the stylised map of Australia within the stadium, but it was too risky, because of the extreme wind conditions, to have this segment as the strong wind might have blown the parachute jumpers off course if they had jumped (the parachute jumpers appeared during the Closing Ceremony, instead).

Queen Elizabeth, who arrived in Brisbane during the Games, presented some of the medals, including presenting the gold medal to Australian swimmer Tracey Wickham. The Queen also closed the Games.