The 2016 Sultan Mehmed Games: Opening Ceremony.

Every four years the Summer Olympic games are held somewhere in the World. The naive amongst us think that it is a celebration it is not.

Instead the purpose of the modern Olympic movement is to gather the nations of the World together to discuss the political issues that they find important. Due to the high number of nations now competing in the Olympics - higher even than the number of nations on earth - this can lead to an extremely noisy affair with every screaming out the issues that they consider important.

During the course of each games that huge array of topics is whittled down to just a handful. These issues are then explored in great detail at the Parallel or "Para-Olympics" for disabled athletes that are held around two weeks later. I think someone really needs to look up the word; "Parallel" in the dictionary.

The 2016 Olympics were supposed to be held in Rio de Janerio. Unfortunately the US and the UK decided to hijack this year's event and turn it into a mass celebration of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group. This mainly took the form of trying to get competitors from Russia who have long opposed ISIL banned from the games.

In this effort the US and the UK were only partially successful. Although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) did stop short of issuing a blanket ban on Russia it did leave individual federations such at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Swimming Federation (FINA) to impose their own bans.

Due to the US' failure to get exactly what it wanted much of what became known as the ISIL games were spent worrying about where America's rage would explode next in an effort to ruin the games.

For much of early 2016 attention focused on Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan's attempts to reignite the long running conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR). Both Armenia and Azerbaijan who contest the NKR sit directly south of Georgia. It was during the 2008 Beijing games that Georgia decided launch into a war against Russia that it promptly lost.

Fortunately several months of concerted international pressure seemed to put the lid back on NKR - at least for now. Sadly that only meant that attention switched back to Shamali Province which the US created from the ruins of Ukraine during the 2014 Sochi games and where Turkish backed terror groups continue to be a particular problem.

Within the first week of the games on August 10th (10/8/16) Russian security services foiled a Shamali Province backed plot to launch a terror attack in the Russian province of Crimea. In response Shamali Province began massing its military on the border with Russia. This created a fear that Shamali Province would attempt to invade Crimea rather like Georgia attacked Russia back in 2008. 

Obviously this forced Russia to mobilise its forces to deter any attack by Shamali Province. The games also set out to deter Shamali Province's aggression with lots of results - particularly in boxing - suddenly going Russia's way. This was to send the message that Russia rather than Shamali Province had the majority of international support.

Sadly with the games ending on August 21st (21/8/16) Erdogan's and the Americans nihilism could not be contained forever. It exploded on August 24th (24/8/16) when Turkey with US permission launched an invasion of northern Syria. The purpose of this invasion is to protect ISIL's supply lines into Turkey that have been coming under increasing pressure from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) coalition.

The Turkish invasion and continued occupation of Syria used a mixture of regular troops - particularly very Special Forces known as "Purple Berets" - and irregular troops known collectively as the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB). These are made up of members of the "Grey Wolves" - the paramilitary wing of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

One of their key divisions take their name from Sultan Mehmed - the 15th Century Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. 

He is often referred to as; "Mehmed the Conqueror" for his role in expanding that Islamist Caliphate through the capture of what it now known as Istanbul. He also invaded and occupied much of the Balkans including what is now known as Greece, Bosnia, Hungary and Albania. It was also Mehmed the Conqueror who invaded and occupied Crimea on the Black Sea before launching an invasion of Italy which ultimately failed.

With the Turkish military - both regular and irregular - operating in parallel with ISIL in Syria it is only appropriate then that the ISIL Games are followed by the Sultan Mehmed Games. 

The Opening Ceremony of which took place last night.

The Video Countdown:  It is a longstanding tradition that ceremonies such as these begin with a short video sequence that features a prominent 10 to 1 countdown. The purpose of this is to allow all the broadcasters who are picking up the official International Para-Olympic Committee (IPC)  feed to make sure they calibrate their coverage so they don't miss the start of the ceremony say because they were in a commercial break.

During the ceremonies of the ISIL games the Brazilian hosts broke with this tradition. Instead they showed a video sequence followed by a countdown in the arena that was part of the ceremony itself. This was done to make the point that in recent years broadcasting technology has moved on to the point where this type of countdown is redundant. In turn this poses the question of whether the Olympics themselves have become redundant. After all in the gap between the last Closing Ceremony and this Opening Ceremony we've had the annual G20 political summit.

In this ceremony the Brazilian hosts continued to play about with this idea. Right before the ceremony began a 10 to 1 countdown was shown on giant screens inside the arena. At the time the IPC feed was showing a wide aerial shot of the arena. That meant that the 10 to 1 countdown was reasonably clearly visible to anyone who was watching the IPC feed. Particularly any program directors who at that point would be shouting at their presenters in the studio to shut up because the show was about to start.

The ceremony then began with a video sequence that did not feature a 10 to 1 countdown. Instead it featured IPC President Phillip Craven at his home in Stoke Mandeville, UK - birthplace of the Para-Olympic movement - packing a suitcase for his trip to Brazil.

Craven then arrives at an airport where he discovers that all flights have been cancelled. Unlike the IOC the IPC has imposed a blanket ban on Russia competitors at these games. This is unfortunate because if there is one main topic to be carried over from the ISIL games to the Sultan Mehmed games it is; "How did the US and the UK get it so wrong?" By banning Russia from these games Craven - whose family name means; "Cowardly" - has prevented even that topic being discussed. It's rather as if he's cancelled everybody's flights.

Eventually Craven was able to sneak aboard a flight to the Brazilian city of Belem. This is located in the far north of Brazil in Para state close to the border with French Guyana. It is probably as far away from Rio de Janerio as you can get whilst staying with in Brazil. It is also the Brazilian city that sounds most similar to the term; "Bellend" which is an English slang term that it hardly complimentary.

From Belem Craven had to make a treacherous journey in his wheelchair across the length of Brazil passing many of its famous people, Rainforests, rivers and towns on the way. His arrival in Rio de Janerio was marked by a shot of Craven sitting at the feet of the famous Christ the Redeemer statue. With much Closing Ceremony just gone focused on my 'stigmata' I'll take that as a compliment.

Craven was then shown making his way through the streets of Rio where he encountered many Para-Olympic sports such as what seemed to be the wheelchair marathon. Finally Craven made his way through the halls and passageways of the Maracana stadium where the ceremony was being held.

The video then suddenly ended and we cut to Craven sitting in his wheelchair on a platform inside the arena. After being introduced by the announcer Craven pulled on a giant rope hanging next to him. This unfurled a giant number 10 that began another 10 to 1 countdown.

Although I suspect they were sequenced by computer in much the same way that commercial breaks on TV are these days the numerals themselves were distinctly low-tech. They were simply cloth banners that unfurled around the arena until they reach 1.

There was then a giant sculpture of a zero that stood in front of a ramp. Down that ramp came hurtling Aaron Fotheringham who is quite possibly the World's only wheelchair stuntman. This native of Las Vegas, Nevada, US regularly competes in BMX and Skateboard competitions alongside able bodied athletes.

However Fotheringham is probably most famous for appearing in the UK broadcaster Channel 4's "Yes I Can" Para-Olympic trailer; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IocLkk3aYlk

As I mentioned at the time of the Closing Ceremony there was serious concern that these Sultan Mehmed games would be a complete flop with only 12% of tickets. In an effort to prevent that from happening Channel 4 dubbed this trailer into Portuguese and let it be shown across Brazil. Along with an endorsement from the Pope and the "#FillTheSeats" campaign this has significantly helped boost interest in the games.

Unlike in the trailer during the ceremony Fotheringham came down this huge ramp and then jumped through the zero which let out fireworks as he did so. This gave it the full Evel Knievel stuntman effect.

It might just have been me but I thought this oval zero seemed to resemble the opening of a woman's vagina. This gave the whole sequence an air of a man in a wheelchair hurtling down the birth canal and then being born into the world through a giant flaming vagina.

Apart from producing an image that will stick in the mind this raised an interesting talking point. 

The Para-Olympics feature a wide range of competitors with a wide range of disabilities. Some of these are congenital disabilities meaning that people are born with them. Others - particularly the amputees - will have lived much of their life as able bodied only to suddenly become disabled.

During the 2014 Sochi Para-Olympics I seem to remember discussing this by comparing British Skier Kelly Gallagher and Russian Rower Alexey Chuvashev who performed that memorable "I'm Possible" sequence. Kelly Gallagher suffers from Albinism which is a congenital condition in which a certain protein is not produced or the receptor sites don't respond to the protein. Chuvashev was simply a soldier who stepped on a bomb and his legs fell off.

To answer the question Aaron Fotheringham suffers from Spina Bifida which is a congenital condition. So he was born that way. Although I think his mother might remember it slightly differently.

Wheels Within Wheels: The next sequence began with a traditionally Brazilian circle of Samba drummers. 

As part of this circle was the older man who featured in the earlier Opening Ceremony teaching a young boy to dance. At the time I said that I didn't catch his name. I have since found out his name and written it down. Unfortunately I have forgotten where I wrote it down. So it seems this poor guy will have to wait a little bit longer to receive his due credit. 

All the members of this Samba circle were black. In fact at one point I commented that they looked like some of my Caribbean neighbours. I then remembered where Brazil was on the map and what I'd just said. Some of the male members of the circle were wearing red and white striped tops that made them resemble characters from the children's books that are known in the US as "Where's Waldo" but in the UK as "Where's Wally." 

With their Afro hairstyles they also seemed to resemble the British "Golliwog" or the similar US "Sambo" dolls that are now considered wildly racist. This seemed to be another reminder that Brazil like much of the rest of Latin America shares the US' history of slavery and racism.

As the Samba circle was perform onto the arena floor around them was video projected a sequences of cogs all whirring as if in some giant machine. The arena floor was then taken over by performers wielding all sorts of wheeled objects.

The were giant "Penny Farthing" bicycle style wheels being pushed. There were wheelchairs pulling wheeled trailers carrying what appeared to be giant plant pots - there's definitely a "Bill & Ben the Flowerpot Men" joke in there somewhere. There was also people carrying medium sized wheels on sticks above their heads which seemed to resemble giant lollipops. I think this was a reference to the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" whose star Gene Wilder died recently. It seems his body of work will live on across the globe.

As I've said the Para-Olympics features a wide range of competitors with a wide range of disabilities. However the ones that are most obvious to the untrained eye are the people confined to wheelchairs. Although I should point out that there are a host of reasons why someone might need to use a wheelchair. 

As a result the wheelchair is largely considered the internationally recognised symbol of disability.

Within the wheelchair events there is actually something of an engineering arms race to see who can get the best performance out of their equipment. It leads to lots of scandals with people accusing each other of using illegal designs. If you are super into wheels then the Handcycling events are definitely for you. Not least because they feature Alex Zanardi who by all accounts is just as mad now as he was when he was a Formula 1 driver.

However I think this sequence was also a reference to the indirect and sometimes mysterious way in which politics and international diplomacy. The famous Irish poet Seamus Heaney used a bicycle as a metaphor for this type of complexity in his poems "Wheels Within Wheels." 

An example of this that I am particularly familiar with that seems very relevant to Brazil is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations to find a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol.

Using made up examples in this you would find that say the UK was resistant to a legally binding agreement due to fears that it would impose unduly onerous Greenhouse Gas (ghg) emission reduction targets. 

Once the UK had been reassured it could set its own targets its cog would shift to allow for legal force to the agreement. This in turn would impact say the Norwegian cog that wanted to give more money to nations such as Brazil but needed a legally binding structure to make sure that money wasn't squandered. Once Norway had got its legally binding structure from the UK its own cog would turn releasing money to Brazil. In turn this guarantee that they would receive a baseline of funding below what the market could provide Brazil's cog would turn allowing for market based funding. This is turn would move say Nepal's cog so they too would allow for market based funding.

Amid this complex array of turning and whirring cogs eventually you would end up with an agreement that suits everybody.

Or at least we would have done if at the last minute US President Barack Obama hadn't turned up and once again declared;

"I'M HERE TO SAVE THE WORLD!"

And smashed it all to bits with a hammer.

As this "Where's Wally" sequence ended Philip Craven once again found himself in the spotlight. This time he was sitting in the stands where he was formally introduced by the announcer.

17:45 on 8/9/16 (UK date).