1976 Summer Olympics the exclusive Ritz-Carlton hotel in a vain attempt to end the "delays". Ultimately Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa made some sort of secret deal to buy off Desjardins, which finally allowed work to proceed. Taillibert wrote in "Notre Cher Stade Olympique" "If the Olympic Games took place, it was thanks to Dede Desjardins. What irony!" The opening ceremony of the 1976 Summer Olympic Games was held on Saturday, July 17, 1976, at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Quebec in front of an audience of some 73,000 in the stadium, and an estimated half billion watching on television. The ceremony marked the
Olympic Games ceremony their work during the Games. Next, two other national flags are hoisted on flagpoles one at a time while the corresponding national anthems are played: the flag of Greece to again honor the birthplace of the Olympic Games, and the flag of the country hosting the next Summer or Winter Olympic Games. In Moscow, Soviet Union, during the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott, the flag raised to represent the next games host was that of the City of Los Angeles instead of the flag of the boycotting United States. In Sydney and Athens, two Greek flags were raised because Greece was