The British media reports that following a petition on the Downing Street website to include the Red Arrows in the London 2012 Opening Ceremony that generated more than half a million signatures, Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell urged London 2012 Thursday to include the RAF acrobatic team in the ceremony.
The petition was starting following a report that appeared in The Sun last September that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport had deemed the team as “unsuitable for the 2012 Olympics because they are too British”. It was immediately denied by Jowell and by the Red Arrows spokeswoman Rachel Huxford in an interview with insidethegames.com.
Jowell said, “I am delighted that so many people have shown how important the Red Arrows are to them by signing this petition. To their millions of fans the Red Arrows demonstrate all the best elements of being British of which we are so rightly proud. As we have made clear on many occasions, it is just not true that the Government has in some way banned the Red Arrows from being involved in 2012. Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth”.
She added, “while it is up to the 2012 Organising Committee to decide what form the ceremonies in 2012 should take and who should participate, I am very clear in my own mind that the Red Arrows should be part of London’s welcome to the world in four years time”.
