Queen Elizabeth II formally opened the Montreal Olympics, notable for Nadia Comăneci's perfect gymnastics scores and for a budget that ballooned roughly twenty-fold over initial estimates. Mayor Jean Drapeau had promised the games could no more run a deficit than a man could have a baby; Montreal's 'Big Owe' stadium debt was not paid off until 2006.
Jean Drapeau's confidence in 1970, when Montreal won the bid, bordered on the theatrical. He assured skeptical citizens that hosting the Olympics could no sooner produce a deficit than "a man can have a baby." Construction delays, labor disputes, and design ambitions for the futuristic Olympic Stadium, with its inclined tower meant to support a retractable roof, sent costs spiraling from an estimated $124 million to nearly $1.5 billion.
The opening ceremony on July 29 nonetheless delivered genuine spectacle, with Queen Elizabeth II, as head of state of Canada, presiding. Days later, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci, just fourteen, would score the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics history on the uneven bars, a moment so unprecedented that the scoreboard, not designed to display four digits, flashed 1.00 instead.
Montreal's taxpayers financed the debt through a special tobacco tax that lasted until 2006, three decades after the closing ceremony. The stadium's roof, plagued by tears and mechanical failures, was eventually fixed in place permanently, a monument to Olympic ambition outrunning municipal reality.
Key people: Jean Drapeau, Elizabeth II, Nadia Comăneci