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Research project on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games

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  4. Research project on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games

CEO-UAB developed, by request of the International Olympic Committee, a study on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Sydney Olympic Games, during the period March 2000 – June 2001.

The opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games are the greatest display of the philosophy of the Olympic Movement and the main focus of attention for the media. For this reason, the broadcasting of the verbal comments and images of the ceremony can provide data of high interest about the conception of different key themes for the Olympic Movement and about its own projection on to international public opinion.

The main objective of this research was the analysis of the television coverage by international broadcasters of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. The focus of the analysis was an exhaustive review of the verbal comments of commentators in the opening and closing with special emphasis on references to the Olympic Movement and the International Olympic Committee.

The final report summarises the main results of the research: treatment of the IOC and the Olympic Movement, treatment of president Samaranch’ image and actions and evaluation of the Sydney Olympic Games. Some other analyses were also added: the parade of athlete’s and the use of the Media Guides for the ceremonies, the SOBO signal and other IOC official documents prepared for the media to broadcast the ceremonies.

The research for the Sydney Games focused on 15 televisions, 5 of which NBC (United States), Channel 7 (Australia), TVE (Spain), ERT (Greece), Televisa (Mexico), were completely analysed;  the remaining 10, RAI (Italy), CBC (Canada), France 2/3 (France), Channel 3 (South Africa), BBC (United Kingdom), Channel 4 (Uruguay), Egyptian Television (Egypt), ZDF (Germany), NRK1 (Norway) and YLE TV2 (Finland), were analysed in the segments of maximum Olympic interest.

The project was based on the research previously carried out by the CEO-UAB in 1992 on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Barcelona’92 Olympic Games, ​​directed by Miquel de Moragas and published in Television in the Olympics. London: John Libbey, 1995.

The research was led by Professor Miquel de Moragas and the research team was formed by Ana Belén Moreno and Beatriz Garcia.