THE OLYMPICS Billions of TV viewers, billions of Euros, tens of sports, a mega-competition

The biggest athletic competition in the world, in all respects, will be officially opened today in London. A few figures, concerning the opening ceremony, once again prove, that today we will witness an extraordinary event: 120 heads of state and of government will view the show preceding the games, which cost 27 million Euros, conceived by Danny Boyle, director of the movie "Slumdog millionaire", which won eight Oscars in 2009. The number of personalities is greater than the one of the Olympics of Beijing, in 2008, and that of the Olympics of Athens. The Queen of the United Kingdom herself will open the Olympic Games, after a reception hosted at Buckingham palace in honor of the foreign leaders attending the event. Prince William, his wife Kate, prince Harry, prince Charles and Camilla will also be present. But the Royal Family will not limit itself to only attending the opening ceremony. William, Kate and Harry, "ambassadors" of the British Olympics team, will watch several contests, as will Charles and Camilla. The ratings also promise to be record breaking. The 2000 edition (Sydney) was watched by 3.7 billion viewers, Athens 2004 reached 3.9 billion viewers, the numbers rose to 4.3 billion in 2008 (Beijing), of which half watched the opening ceremony, and the rising trend will continue with the current edition. All the bells in the United Kingdom, starting with the famous Big Ben, will toll for three minutes today, starting at 08:12 local time, to celebrate the opening of the Olympic Games. Numerous churches, institutions, buildings of the Royal Navy, all the British who own bells and all cyclists can join this "concert". The initiator of this sound show, artist and musician Martin Greed, winner of the Turner Prize, called his initiative "Work N° 1197".

Romania will also participate in this athletic celebration. Even though according to the Olympic spirit, what matters is to attend, some achievements couldn't hurt. According to the analysts of Goldman Sachs, Romania's teams will win 9 medals, of which 3 gold ones, and it will rank 25th in the overall chart. The first ten countries in terms of the number of medals include five G7 member states - the US, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, two major emerging countries - Russia and China, two other developed countries - South Korea and Australia, as well as Ukraine. Together, it is predicted these ten states will win more than half of the medals at stake in the London Olympics. China will lose the advantage provided by the hosting of the Olympic Games, which will increase the number of medals won by Great Britain. The variables used by Goldman Sachs in estimating the number of medals are the political conditions (corruption, political stability, compliance with the law), macroeconomic stability (deficit, debt, inflation), macroeconomic conditions (investments, openness), human capital (life expectancy, schooling), technology (the penetration of mobile phones, PCs, internet and server security), macroeconomic climate (the costs of starting up a business, urbanization, patents and R&D). Let's hope that the athletes will not take into consideration all of these variables and that our athletes will get a bigger number of medals then it was estimated by GS.

Not all the news are good. There is also a dark side to this competition. A terrorist cell supported by Iran and trained by the Shiite Hezbollah faction may attack the Israeli Olympic team, at the Olympic Games of London, the Israeli security services warn, quoted by Sunday Times. The British authorities have created a large security detail for the Olympic Games, which comprises 17,000 policemen and militants, as well as 7,000 private security agents. An additional 12,500 policemen will patrol the streets of London, outside the Olympic locations. According to the British press, special safety rooms have been built underneath the stadiums, for civilians to be transferred inside in the event of a terrorist attack. The Israeli foreign intelligence service (Mossad) is monitoring the activities of a group of Europeans who are apparently connected to the Guardians of the Revolution of Iran and with the Hezbollah Shiite Lebanese movement, backed by the Iranian Islamic regime. After the anti-Jewish attack in Bulgaria, which the United States and Israel blame on the Hezbollah terrorist organization, the British Intelligence Service (MI5) and Scotland Yard have increased the security measures aimed at protecting the Israeli Olympic team in London. Moreover, the Israeli government sent secret agents to guarantee the protection of the Israeli athletes during the London Olympic Games.

Going back to the nice part, beauty lovers will receive a nice surprise at the end, as British top models Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Lily Cole will do a show on a specially arranged catwalk at the official closing ceremony of the London Olympic Games. "The Who" will close the competition. Other artists to go on stage at the end of the event include other familiar names, such as Jesse J., Madness, The Pet Shop Boys, Annie Lennox and Take That.