A Colchester firm will take centre stage at the opening ceremony of the 2004 Olympics after turning the giant stadium into a million-gallon lake.

Details of the opening ceremony are a guarded secret.

But the Evening Gazette can reveal a massive lake will be the stage for a series of pyrotechnic displays in front of 55,000 fans and millions of TV viewers next Friday.

Nayland-based Geosynthetic Technology created the enormous water feature for the flagship event.

GT chairman John Alexander says the project is so secret that his team was banned from taking photographs.

"It's an imprisonable offence to be caught with a camera - that's how serious it is," he told the Gazette.

A confidentiality clause also prevents him talking in detail about the opening ceremony.

But he could say: "When the lights go up the whole floor of the stadium will be a vast lake. The displays are taking place on that lake."

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