812-000 Melbourne 1956 Closing Ceremony Olympic Summer Games

From our Collection, created from unreleased Amateur footage. For licensing inquiries please contact [e-mail]
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The closing ceremony of the Melbourne was poignant and new to the Olympics. At the Closing Ceremony, the competing nations had been represented previously only by a flag bearer and the name standard bearer. But an Australian boy named John Ian Wing had written to the Melbourne organizing committee and suggested a change. He proposed that the athletes march in as a group, without regard to nationality or sport, to show how the athletes of varying nations had come together during the two weeks of the Olympics. As the final march of the athletes occurred at the Closing Ceremony, the Australian crowd serenaded them with the almost mystical Scottish hymn, "Will Ye' No' Come Back Again?" The Official Report noted, "A wave of emotion swept over the crowd, the Olympic Flame was engulfed in it and died; the Olympic flag went out in tears, not cheers, and a great silence. This, more than any remembered laurel of the Games, was something no-one had ever experienced before â not anywhere in the world, not anywhere in time."

[@johnianwing1]

The march I have in mind is different from the Opening Ceremony. There will only be One Nation. John Ian Wing.

[@danbautista9429]

Hi thankyou do you have where they sang will ye no come back again at this place the closeing ceramony? I'm having request for this