Reflecting on the Olympics theme songs of decades gone by offers little sign of a winning formula. There is no obvious considered ethos or guiding principles that link the eclectic choice of artists, who include José Carreras, Muse, Celine Dion, Björk and Giorgio Moroder, and who, in recent years, have been asked to deliver official songs commemorating the world’s greatest sporting extravaganza.
The latest Games – which start in Rio do Janeiro, Brazil, on Friday – have been promoted with the effective official anthem Os Deuses do Olimpo Visitam o Rio de Janeiro (Gods of Olympus Visit Rio de Janeiro). It's an authentic, funky Latin groove that unites Brazil's traditional samba schools and rousingly plays on national stereotypes.
So far so good – but another tune selected as an official anthem for the 2016 games is Katy Perry's Rise, an anodyne electro-pop stomper cluttered with pointless samples of Olympics commentators and whooping crowds.
The most prolific – and therefore, we must conclude, most successful – Olympics theme songwriter is John Williams, the American film composer best known for his rousing scores to blockbusters such as Star Wars, Jaws and Indiana Jones.
This sense of cinematic grandeur was captured successfully on his first orchestral Olympics theme, for the 1984 games in Los Angeles, and he was called in again in 1988 (Seoul, South Korea), 1996 (Atlanta, United States), and for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The tradition of Olympics organisers parachuting in major music stars to perform a radio anthem arguably began with the 1992 Games in Barcelona. It was a vintage year for music, which established two modern standards.
The first came from crossover opera stars Sarah Brightman and José Carreras, who teamed up for the ballad Amigos Para Siempre (Friends for Life), which was composed by the hit musical team of Andrew Lloyd Webber and legendary lyricist Don Black.
The 1992 Games took place a year after Queen frontman Freddie Mercury’s death, and his “pop-opera” epic Barcelona – originally the title track of a 1987 album of duets with Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé – was reappropriated as an emotive theme song for the city’s games.
The 1988 Seoul Olympics served up a couple of curiosities. The better remembered is Whitney Houston's soppy One Moment in Time, composed by John Bettis and Albert Hammond, father of Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr, which topped the charts on both side of the Atlantic.
But the more remarkable of the two is the electro trippiness of South Korean act Koreana's Hand in Hand, an epic multilingual, disco ballad produced by the Italian dance pioneer Giorgio Moroder.
This kind of quirkiness is in marked contrast to the template-fitting theme songs that followed.
The 1996 Games in Atlanta opened with Celine Dion, who played perfectly to expectations with Power of the Dream, a soaring, aspirational ballad destined to be a karaoke favourite. The Games closed with Gloria Estefan's utterly unremarkable ballad Reach.
Four years later, John Farnham and Olivia Newton-John teamed up at the Sydney Olympics to sing Dare to Dream, a syrupy song few born outside Australia are likely to recall.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, in 2004 we had Björk live at the opening ceremony in Athens, crowing in a dissatisfied tone about centuries and oceans over warbling beats, in a typically kooky dress. Originally drawn from her experimental masterpiece Medúlla – a kind of conceptual reflection on the physical realm of blood and the body – the track Oceania has no rousing intent or sporting references, and was instead sung from the point of view of a body of water watching over evolution. Utterly bonkers, but kind of brilliant, the Greeks reclaimed the Olympics song in style.
It was perhaps this beguiling selection that inspired the organisers of the London 2012 Games – we shall gloss over Beijing's forgettable Chinese-language piano duet You and Me – in seeking out the most bombastic British act they could find: Muse.
With Survival, the excessive, proggy trio wrestled with combining their brief – to write a universal anthem for mass-consumption– and their own propensity for Teutonic silliness.
At the end of this particular race, silliness was the first to cross the line. Lyrics such as: “I’ll light the fuse and I’ll never lose” meant this one never really got out of the starting blocks.
rgarratt@thenational.ae
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Story of 2017-18 so far and schedule to come
Roll of Honour
Who has won what so far in the West Asia rugby season?
Western Clubs Champions League
Winners: Abu Dhabi Harlequins
Runners up: Bahrain
Dubai Rugby Sevens
Winners: Dubai Exiles
Runners up: Jebel Ali Dragons
West Asia Premiership
Winners: Jebel Ali Dragons
Runners up: Abu Dhabi Harlequins
UAE Premiership Cup
Winners: Abu Dhabi Harlequins
Runners up: Dubai Exiles
Fixtures
Friday
West Asia Cup final
5pm, Bahrain (6pm UAE time), Bahrain v Dubai Exiles
West Asia Trophy final
3pm, The Sevens, Dubai Hurricanes v Dubai Sports City Eagles
Friday, April 13
UAE Premiership final
5pm, Al Ain, Dubai Exiles v Abu Dhabi Harlequins
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Pari
Produced by: Clean Slate Films (Anushka Sharma, Karnesh Sharma) & KriArj Entertainment
Director: Prosit Roy
Starring: Anushka Sharma, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Ritabhari Chakraborty, Rajat Kapoor, Mansi Multani
Three stars
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
ENGLAND SQUAD
Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Tom Curran, Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood
The specs: 2018 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy
Price, base / as tested Dh97,600
Engine 1,745cc Milwaukee-Eight v-twin engine
Transmission Six-speed gearbox
Power 78hp @ 5,250rpm
Torque 145Nm @ 3,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined 5.0L / 100km (estimate)
WORLD CUP SEMI-FINALS
England v New Zealand
(Saturday, 12pm UAE)
Wales v South Africa
(Sunday, 12pm, UAE)
What is Reform?
Reform is a right-wing, populist party led by Nigel Farage, a former MEP who won a seat in the House of Commons last year at his eighth attempt and a prominent figure in the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union.
It was founded in 2018 and originally called the Brexit Party.
Many of its members previously belonged to UKIP or the mainstream Conservatives.
After Brexit took place, the party focused on the reformation of British democracy.
Former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson became its first MP after defecting in March 2024.
The party gained support from Elon Musk, and had hoped the tech billionaire would make a £100m donation. However, Mr Musk changed his mind and called for Mr Farage to step down as leader in a row involving the US tycoon's support for far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson who is in prison for contempt of court.
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Yemen's Bahais and the charges they often face
The Baha'i faith was made known in Yemen in the 19th century, first introduced by an Iranian man named Ali Muhammad Al Shirazi, considered the Herald of the Baha'i faith in 1844.
The Baha'i faith has had a growing number of followers in recent years despite persecution in Yemen and Iran.
Today, some 2,000 Baha'is reside in Yemen, according to Insaf.
"The 24 defendants represented by the House of Justice, which has intelligence outfits from the uS and the UK working to carry out an espionage scheme in Yemen under the guise of religion.. aimed to impant and found the Bahai sect on Yemeni soil by bringing foreign Bahais from abroad and homing them in Yemen," the charge sheet said.
Baha'Ullah, the founder of the Bahai faith, was exiled by the Ottoman Empire in 1868 from Iran to what is now Israel. Now, the Bahai faith's highest governing body, known as the Universal House of Justice, is based in the Israeli city of Haifa, which the Bahais turn towards during prayer.
The Houthis cite this as collective "evidence" of Bahai "links" to Israel - which the Houthis consider their enemy.
SEMI-FINAL
Monterrey 1
Funes Mori (14)
Liverpool 2
Keita (11), Firmino (90 1)
Omar Yabroudi's factfile
Born: October 20, 1989, Sharjah
Education: Bachelor of Science and Football, Liverpool John Moores University
2010: Accrington Stanley FC, internship
2010-2012: Crystal Palace, performance analyst with U-18 academy
2012-2015: Barnet FC, first-team performance analyst/head of recruitment
2015-2017: Nottingham Forest, head of recruitment
2018-present: Crystal Palace, player recruitment manager
UAE players with central contracts
Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Rameez Shahzad, Shaiman Anwar, Adnan Mufti, Mohammed Usman, Ghulam Shabbir, Ahmed Raza, Qadeer Ahmed, Amir Hayat, Mohammed Naveed and Imran Haider.
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More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The years Ramadan fell in May
Huddersfield Town permanent signings:
- Steve Mounie (striker): signed from Montpellier for £11 million
- Tom Ince (winger): signed from Derby County for £7.7m
- Aaron Mooy (midfielder): signed from Manchester City for £7.7m
- Laurent Depoitre (striker): signed from Porto for £3.4m
- Scott Malone (defender): signed from Fulham for £3.3m
- Zanka (defender): signed from Copenhagen for £2.3m
- Elias Kachunga (winger): signed for Ingolstadt for £1.1m
- Danny WIlliams (midfielder): signed from Reading on a free transfer
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
TOURNAMENT INFO
Women’s World Twenty20 Qualifier
Jul 3- 14, in the Netherlands
The top two teams will qualify to play at the World T20 in the West Indies in November
UAE squad
Humaira Tasneem (captain), Chamani Seneviratne, Subha Srinivasan, Neha Sharma, Kavisha Kumari, Judit Cleetus, Chaya Mughal, Roopa Nagraj, Heena Hotchandani, Namita D’Souza, Ishani Senevirathne, Esha Oza, Nisha Ali, Udeni Kuruppuarachchi
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The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh117,059
The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre supercharged V8
Power: 712hp at 6,100rpm
Torque: 881Nm at 4,800rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 19.6 l/100km
Price: Dh380,000
On sale: now
The bio
Favourite vegetable: Broccoli
Favourite food: Seafood
Favourite thing to cook: Duck l'orange
Favourite book: Give and Take by Adam Grant, one of his professors at University of Pennsylvania
Favourite place to travel: Home in Kuwait.
Favourite place in the UAE: Al Qudra lakes
