Francesca Rudkin: The Olympics were a well-timed distraction during a grim week

The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin

So, just how crazy was that Olympic Opening Ceremony yesterday morning?

It was bonkers - in a fabulous way. When the idea for an out-of-stadium opening was originally floated, it was deemed logistically impossible for so many reasons, from losing athletes in the Seine to security concerns.

But this weekend, the French reminded us you can dream big, challenge the status quo, attempt the unimaginable, and pull it off.

Big sports stars and singers turned up and shone – but there was also magic in a heavy metal band performing while attached to a building filled with headless Maire Antoinettes, a mechanical horse riding up the Seine, zip lines across the river, the Olympic flame caldron floating beneath a hot air balloon. There was also a fashion parade, dancers and acrobats and a parquor masked torch bearer.

It was many things; stunning, tacky, moving, fun, a little nuts, clever and overly packed.

As France showed off its capital city, culture, architecture, and history brilliantly, I sometimes forgot what I was watching – but then we’d head back to the Seine where excited athletes cruising in an odd assortment of barges and boats – some large, some worryingly small – brought us back to why we were there. For a sporting competition which aims to unite the world.

Apart from an Olympic flag being raised upside down, this tour through the heart of Paris went off without obvious incidents. There would have been some hugely relieved city and Olympic officials by the end of it all.

It felt like a made for TV show – I don’t know what it would have been like for the athletes taking part? Did they miss the roar of a crowd when walking into a stadium? Regardless, they will always be able to say they took part in the most ambitious Olympic opening ceremony ever.

You can just imagine the LA Organising Committee for the 2028 Olympics watching the show thinking - Oh damn.

The Opening Ceremony was a bit of a spirit lifter at the end of a grim week in New Zealand.

I don’t think anyone could read or listen to the reports of the Abuse in Care Royal Commission without feeling horrified and moved. 6 years in the making, it’s a relief to see all members of Parliament rise to the occasion and commit to righting these horrors of the past.

At first, I was disappointed to hear brave victims who have battled to be heard for so long will have to wait until November to get an official apology. But the more I hear about the magnitude of the abuse, the cost of that abuse, the impact of that abuse, and the different organisations that dished out and protected the abuse, the more I realise this is not a quick apology to make.

How do we right the wrongs? How do we hold people to account? How do we compensate for what was taken from these people? How do we respect those who have already passed – many buried in unmarked graves?

This travesty must be dealt with once and for all. It must be done right, and it must leave no stone unturned. How do we navigate it? Maybe we continue listening to those victims who finally have a voice and take guidance from them. It’s the least we can do.

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