NEXT OLYMPIC GAMES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25377, 27 December 1947, Page 2

NEXT OLYMPIC GAMES

POSTERS APPEARING IN BRITAIN

OPENING CEREMONY IN JULY [By HARVEY BLANKS] LONDON, Dec. 10. Applications for tickets for the fourteenth Olympic Games of the modern era are being sent out this week, and already the magnificent posters and banners advertising the event are making their appearance in England. The actual games will be opened at 4 p.m. on July 29, 1948, by His Majesty the King, and will last until August 14. A symbolic torch will be lit in Greece, as in ancient days, by the magnifying glass at Olympia, and, passed from hand to hand, will arrive at Wembley Empire Stadium on July 29 to kindle the sacred flame which will burn day and night during the period of the games. The traditional pigeons, too, which in the ancient days carried the news of the opening so that all local wars should cease, will be released over Wembley. Massed choirs from all over Britain, under the direction of Sir Malcolm Sargent, will sing Kipling’s Olympic Hymn, set to the music of Roger Quilter, and this greatest pageant of sport in post-war times will then commence with the traditional maerh past of the youth of the nations.

For those who have eyes to see, it will be —as Lord Burghley, chairman of the organising committee, has said —“a real hope and proof that the world need not despair; for in this- field of human intercourse and endeavour, at any rate, there is a real basis of understanding common to the mass of ordinary people in the world.” Sixty Nations Invited Sixty nations have been invited to the games, and nearly all have accepted. Competitors, numbering about 6000, will compete for the world’s highest honours in 17 different sports.

Arrangements to receive and accommodate the hundreds of thousands of guests who are expected frem all over the world are nearing completion. The authorities hope that the games will be a great draw to Americans, and so, indirectly, bring large sums of muchneeded dollars across the Atlantic.

Admission prices for the various sections of the games are high but not unduly so. Seats for the opening ceremony will cost from 7s 6d to ,£2 2s, while tickets for the full series of any one sport will be available at £l6 16s each. Season tickets, giving admission to all sports on any day, will not, however be issued. The highest price for any one event is £3 3s for a single seat at the boxing contests. Although the Post Office has so far been silent on the subject, I understand that a special commemorative set of postage stamps is to be issued. Other countries in the past have printed and issued special designs when they have been hosts to the games, and England does not intend to be an exception. Much argument is proceeding behind scenes as to whether tradition is to be abandoned, and a set designed which which will carry pictorial scenes instead of the usual Monarch’s head. The Olympic set is expected to be a great dollar-earner, as it is sure to be widely sought by collectors in the United States.