In May 1981, the queen is on her second visit to Norway. The first, in 1955, brought her, together with her husband Prince Philip, among others, to Holmenkollen. Such a visit is within the more predictably polite. But this second time the queen visits her relatives in the Norwegian royal house, the diplomatic etiquette has been put aside in favor of genuine commitment and curiosity. The unveiling of a Norwegian statue This time, Queen Elizabeth instead wants to get in the car to the east in Oslo to see how the new Bjerke Animal Hospital takes care of its four-legged patients. FOLLOWING CLOSELY: Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at Bjerke Animal Hospital. Photo: Erik Thorberg / NTB Chief Veterinarian Arne Holm received a very engaged guest he would hardly have imagined on a tour. Before Queen Elizabeth left Bjerkebanen this Thursday and made her way back down Trondheimsveien towards Sinsenkrysset, she also unveiled the statue of the cold-blooded horse “May Prince”, which sits proudly in front of Norway’s largest trotting track to this day. Queen Elizabeth and a cold-blooded horse. In a way, it could not be more poetic and respectful of the nation she was visiting. Nothing was either glamorous or solemn about the horse person Elizabeth. UNVEILED BY THE QUEEN: The statue of the cold-blooded horse “Prince of May” Her son, now King Charles III, called equestrian sport his mother’s “passion in life” as recently as 2021. This was even more evident during the big races at Royal Ascot or other racecourses. The races gave breeder and horse owner Elizabeth an arena to express an open and genuine enthusiasm she very rarely displayed. “I like to breed a horse that is faster than everyone else’s,” as she put it herself. And it seemed. LOVE: Queen Elizabeth was particularly fond of horses, and was often pictured with them. Photo: henrydallalphotography.com/PA Wi / Reuters The first final Sport did not define the queen’s reign, but it partly gave her an arena for disconnection from the royal framework – and partly a presence in several layers of the people, including as part of the football audience. One of Elizabeth’s first duties as Queen was to present the FA Cup trophy in 1953. The date was May 2nd, and it was exactly one month until Elizabeth II was to be formally crowned. Never had a football match in the British Isles had such a large crowd. Too many people in the post-war period had bought their first television to watch the aforementioned coronation ceremony. But before that time, the BBC broadcast the FA Cup final from Wembley live. Blackpool and Bolton were the final teams, and it was the most goal-rich final in the tournament’s history up to that point. Two very late Blackpool goals turn the game around for a 4-3 victory for the side from the North West Coast resort town, and legendary captain Stanley Matthews is honored to receive the trophy from the new Queen. The historic trophy BIGGEST: Here, Queen Elizabeth has handed the WC trophy to Bobby Moore. Photo: AP But the most important of all the trophies Queen Elizabeth handed out was the one she presented to Bobby Moore on 30 July 1966. The Jules Rimet Trophy, as it was called, was the first World Cup trophy – and the only one England have ever won. This Saturday would go down in history as the greatest in British football history. England beat West Germany 4–2 after both extra time and controversy and were the best in the world, a feeling they had reluctantly had to give up in the vast majority of other contexts over a few decades. The next time England hosted a major men’s football championship, the European Championship in 1996, it was also the monarch who presented the trophy at Wembley. But the symbolism was all too apt. The world had moved on from English rule. And it was German captain Jürgen Klinsmann who jubilantly received the trophy from Elizabeth II. WC JUBILEE: Jürgen Klinsmann lifts the trophy he was presented by the queen. Photo: MICHAEL PROBST / AP That is why it probably also felt safer as a British monarch to visit several of the big cricket arenas in his home country. The Queen’s efforts to keep the British Commonwealth together over many decades are particularly well symbolized by cricket, which is a Commonwealth sport more than any other. The tennis match that changed history But if equestrian sport was the one closest to the Queen’s heart, it was tennis that changed her life the most. In 1939, the then Princess Elizabeth and her father, King George, visited the Royal Naval College in Devon. On a tennis court inside the compound, she spotted the athletic Greek Prince Philip. The story goes that she decided then and there that he was the man of her life. 73 years as spouses substantiates that the future queen’s assumption may very well have been right. MEETING ON THE TENNIS COURT: Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, here on their wedding day in 1947. Photo: AP In this sense, one would think that the Wimbledon tournament would receive extra attention from the queen. She was also the tournament’s high patron throughout 64 years. But after she oversaw Virginia Wade’s victory in 1977, it would be 33 long years before the Queen was again present in SW 19, as the tournament is often called, after the postcode where the tournament is played in South London. Instead, it is the next queen, the particularly tennis-interested Duchess Kate, who has taken over the role of patron and is also present on the royal stand with her family every single year. The playful Lilibet If there is any place where you can do this with the continuation of traditions, then it is in the royal family. When London hosted the first Summer Olympic Games after the Second World War, it was King George VI who presided over the opening. The next time one of the Commonwealth countries was an organiser, in Montreal in 1976, it was his daughter, Elizabeth II, who was responsible for the opening, as “Queen of Canada”, as she said in her welcome speech. But never did Queen Elizabeth astound the world as she did when the Games returned to London in 2012. EXTRAORDINARY: Together with actor Daniel Craig, the Queen surprised “everyone” during the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. Photo: – / AFP Just after the celebration of her first 60 years on the throne, it was no surprise that she should be in charge of the opening. It was the way it was done that made a whole, fascinated world gape. Queen Elizabeth in subtle smiling interaction with the second greatest legend of the British Empire, Agent 007, better known as James Bond, in the form of Daniel Craig, revitalized the image of a queen for the whole people. And a queen who gave the British capital a long-awaited boost in the form of the world’s biggest sports festival, under the motto “Inspire a generation”. For 96 years, the world’s most famous woman provided several generations with loads of inspiration. As well as a statue of a cold-blooded horse in a car park at Bjerke in Oslo.
ttn-69
