The real londistan: London hijab-girl to help Beckham bring flag back home

[Ulli]

London girl (with hijab) to help Beckham bring flag back home

Shekhar Bhatia and Kiran Randhawa in Beijing



A 10-year-old London schoolgirl is to star alongside David Beckham at the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony.

Tayyiba Dubhwala is to hold the footballer's hand as he walks into the centre of the stadium, watched by 1.5 billion people worldwide as London accepts the Olympic Flag.

The Forest Gate schoolgirl won a Blue Peter competition to take part in the eight-minute ceremony.

Among the celebrities joining Beckham to celebrate London's acceptance of the flag will be ballet star Deborah Bull, who is to come out of retirement to dance for the first time in six years. Beckham will tour the Bird's Nest on a double-decker London bus, and will also be joined by dancers from the London CandoCo dance company, which has disabled members.

The West End dance troupe ZooNation will star beside Mayor Boris Johnson, who will be handed the Olympic symbol. London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe said: "I hope he doesn't drop the flag." Bill Morris, director of ceremonies, said the eight-minute segment, which will see Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Leona Lewis perform together, would portray London at its best.

"It will have a happy ending, but it will not be a distilled version of our Opening Ceremony," he said.

Some of Britain's greatest Olympians will also participate and the gold medal heroes of Beijing may be included.

London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton said London had sent a team of around 100 observers to Beijing to examine the way the Chinese had handled the Olympics.

"It has been a fantastic learning process. There is nothing like watching a games in action to learn fromit for our games." he said. Beijing Olympic chiefs have promised there will be no "faking it" at the closing ceremony.

They guaranteed authenticity - in contrast to the fiasco of the opening ceremony featuring fake fireworks and a girl lip-synching the words of another singer considered too ugly - while still denying it was falsified.

Wang Wei, spokesman for the organising committee Bocog, said: "This is the first I have heard about faking. I don't believe we would spend this amount of effort and money on faking the previous ceremonies. I can assure you that the closing ceremony will be very nice to look at."

The ceremony will be followed by a party at London House, the centre promoting the city in Beijing. Team GB's gold medal winners and hundreds of other athletes, Mr Johnson, sponsors, celebrities and politicians will attend the champagne reception.

The venue, which was set up by the London Development Agency and has cost the taxpayer £3.1 million, has been a surprise hit.

When it was first proposed by former mayor Ken Livingstone it was branded a waste of money.

But more than 5000 people - including thousands of international businessmen - have passed through its doors and the target of 50 business leads to follow up after the Games was reached early on. Harvey McGrath, the LDA's chairman, called it "great value for money".

Source: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-olympics/article-23542954-details/London+girl+to+help+Beckham+bring+flag+back+home/article.do