Organisers revealed yesterday that they had a contingency plan for lighting the cauldron at the opening ceremony, but had to bow to the wishes of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who had insisted on riding a horse up a steep ramp in a spectacular display on Friday night.
'For the end, we had several options, but Sheikh Mohammed insisted on riding the horse, which had been in training for a very long time,' said artistic director David Atkins, who was also responsible for the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
For one heart-stopping moment, it seemed the pure-bred black Arabian stallion would lose its footing and fall as he stumbled just at the top of the steep ramp - set at a 28-degree incline - made slick with the heavy rain that fell earlier.
It seemed as if the whole crowd, including the Emir of Qatar, willed the horse to move on, and there was a huge sigh of relief when Al-Thani got the animal moving again.
'It's run up that ramp more time than I've had falafel in Qatar,' said Atkins. 'I think we managed to pull off nothing short of a miracle in terms of the conditions prevailing. We've been here for two years and it's rained twice. It rained four times during the ceremony.'
The lighting of the cauldron was one of the most dramatic feats at recent games, even overshadowing the archer who shot a burning arrow to ignite the cauldron at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, or a Parkinson-ridden Muhammad Ali's shaky effort in Atlanta.
