British Olympic Association remembers Queen Elizabeth II and lifetime of Olympic memories
Following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the British Olympic Association paid tribute to Her Majesty and her ‘indelible’ link to the Olympic Games:
“As a head of state she opened them twice, famously ‘leaping’ from a helicopter in one of London 2012’s iconic moments. On a more personal level, she was both the mother and grandmother of an Olympian too.
News of her death, surrounded by her family at Balmoral, at the age of 96, was greeted with tributes from around the world, such was her lifelong love of sport – especially equestrian events, though three-time Team GB Olympian weightlifter Precious McKenzie was often said to be her favourite athlete.
A young Princess Elizabeth, with her new husband Philip, was an enthusiastic fan when the Games came to London in 1948, watching her father George VI declare them open at Wembley Stadium.
Her lifelong passion for horses was underlined when she planned a holiday to Stockholm in 1956, which hosted the equestrian events for the Games in Melbourne due to Australian quarantine laws.
Staying on the Royal Yacht, she watched Francis Weldon, Arthur Rook and Bertie Hill claim team eventing gold.
Two decades later, she opened the Montreal Games, where daughter The Princess Royal became the first member of the British royal family to compete for Great Britain, watched by brothers Charles, Andrew and Edward.
Riding a horse bred by the Queen, Goodwill, she suffered an unfortunate fall but still helped her team to a seventh-place finish.
Fast forward to 2012 and it was the Queen’s granddaughter, Zara Tindall, that followed her mother’s example, this time winning team eventing silver on horse High Kingdom.
But perhaps it’s a top-secret mission with Britain’s most famous spy that will forever define the Queen’s long and storied association with the Games, as she played a starring role as Daniel Craig’s most famous Bond girl.
When opening ceremony director Danny Boyle first thought of the iconic 007 sketch that started his award-winning show, he expected a lookalike to take the role of the Queen.
“It was part of the protocol – you have to bring in the Head of State and sing the National Anthem – and we thought we’d do something different so we wrote up this idea of the James Bond idea,” said Boyle.
“We sent it in to the Palace and we were asking really for permission for them to accept and that it wouldn’t embarrass them. We thought we’d be getting a good double, we were thinking Helen Mirren.”
However, Boyle admitted he thought he was being wound up when a call from Palace officials confirmed she wanted to play herself in the greatest cameo in Olympic history – providing she could deliver the killer line ‘Good evening, Mr Bond’.
She even kept her part secret from her family – a stunned Prince William famously shouting ‘Go Granny’ as the sketch played out to a disbelieving crowd at the Olympic Stadium and billions watching around the world.”
Source: British Olympic Association
