And how did such an event occur? Artistic director Danny Boyle (via The Guardian):



"When I took this job, I took it for lots of reasons. I live locally and I thought I had the confidence and the status to carry a job like this," he said. "But I also took it because my dad was a mad Olympics fan. He was seriously lunatic, sitting up all night watching grainy footage from Mexico. He introduced me to the Olympics."

His father died 18 months ago when the project was still in the planning stages, and Boyle said Friday would have been his birthday.

Asked whether he was trying to make a political point by including a lengthy sequence paying tribute to the NHS, featuring hundreds of real nurses, Boyle said free universal healthcare was "an amazing thing to celebrate".

"The sensibility of the show is very personal," he said. "We had no agenda other than values we feel are true. Not everybody will love that but everyone will recognise it's true. There's no bullshit in it and there's no point-making either."