The chair of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games has fully copped to mucking up the closing ceremony, pointing to several key factors that lead to widespread criticism.
Speaking on Sunrise, Peter Beattie copped to the ill-fated decision not to film athletes entering the closing ceremony, which lead to viewers and Channel 7‘s own commentators savaging the event.
Beattie explained the athletes’ entrance was cut from proceedings to keep them from standing around for an hour beforehand.
“Now, did we get it wrong? Yes, we did get it wrong. Did we stuff it up? Yes, we did stuff it up,” Beattie said.
“Should’ve they been a part of the actual ceremony that was broadcast? Of course they should’ve been. We got it wrong.”
“We were concerned about athletes’ welfare… but we made a mistake” — @SmartState1 responds to criticism of the #GC2018 #ClosingCeremony. pic.twitter.com/sDz0vUQ5Oe
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) April 15, 2018
Taking to Twitter, Beattie also admitted several of the speeches presented at the ceremony were needlessly long.
https://twitter.com/SmartState1/status/985609561993129984
Basketballer Angus Brandt, whose efforts with the Boomers helped to secure gold for Australia at the games, said he was a little miffed about athletes’ omission from the ceremony – and that he would have been pretty okay standing around for a while beforehand.
“It sort of felt like we were left out a little bit and it was a shame the flag bearer wasn’t recognised”
Basketballer Angus Brandt on the #GC2018 #ClosingCeremony controversy. pic.twitter.com/AdDbHRRXDF
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) April 15, 2018
Reception of the closing ceremony has marred what was otherwise an excessively successful fortnight for Australia at the games, which saw the Green and Gold collect an astonishing 198 medals in total.
