2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony the Opening Ceremonies, for example in the last Olympics before that, in Salt Lake City, where banners of the previous 18 Winter Olympics entered Rice-Eccles Stadium at the beginning of the ceremony. This would also be seen in Vancouver during the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics and on the Televised version of the Olympic Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The first speech came from Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, the chief organizer of the Athens 2004 Olympics and the first female chief organizer of an Olympic games. She told the athletes: "Welcome home!" and "Greece is standing before
2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony that Paralympic athletes would also be "smashing ceilings" throughout the Games. Writing in the Independent Jerome Taylor notes that the ceremony was more structured and the music more classical than the Olympic equivalent "but it was still infused with simmering political radicalism and social commentary." Taylor also states that the Ceremony was a celebration of humankind overcoming the impossible. While Charles Perrin in the Daily Express states that after the Olympics the opening ceremony of the Paralympics "won the hearts and minds of the public with a truly memorable show." Perrin adds that "there was a palpable sense of awe