The network is expecting record viewership this year because, unlike previous games, the Rio Olympics are just one hour ahead of U.S. Eastern Daylight Time, allowing the network to carry more live events in prime time.
Advertisement
The women’s soccer and women’s gymnastics teams were among the noteworthy absences at Maracana Stadium on Friday.
But many viewers were upset at waiting to see a global event while audiences and news media in the rest of the world were already sharing pictures of it on the Web.
Yes, there was a carnival atmosphere and Brazil’s most-famous supermodel, Gisele Bundchen walked her last catwalk, but perhaps, probably, the intensely personal nature of these opening ceremonies means they will always have more of an effect on the host nation. And a grotesque rejoinder to the exuberant declaration in October, 2009, from the then-Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, when the International Olympic Committee picked Rio over Madrid, Tokyo and Chicago: “Now we’re going to show the world we can be a great country”. “Then I finally made a decision to join the team just to have this message delivered, especially the one on climate change”, he said.
With green Olympic rings and white kites, organisers of the Rio Games tried to stress two very important messages at the opening ceremony: Take better care of the planet, and each other.
It was instead lit by Brazil’s former marathon runner, Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima, who was famously tackled by a spectator while leading the race at the 2004 Athens Olympics, costing him the gold medal.
The opening ceremony for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games was a colourful celebration of the country’s history and diversity, but was fairly low-tech, a sign of Brazil’s straitened economic circumstance. They were joined by a first-ever Refugee Olympic Team of 10 athletes, displaced from Syria, South Sudan, Congo and Ethiopia.
Michael Phelps led the USA team, the largest with 549 competitors. Film director Fernando Meirelles, one of the show’s three creative directors, said, “I hope that the Opening Ceremony will be a drug for depression in Brazil”. The leader who was supposed to preside over the Games, President Dilma Rousseff, was suspended last May to face an impeachment trial and tweeted that she was “sad to not be at the party”.
As Acelebrities swamped the Maracana for the opening ceremony, which celebrated the culture of favelas, slum dwellers looked on less than 1km away at the lights colouring the night sky.
If you were upset with NBC’s drawn-out broadcast of the opening ceremony of the Olympics blame your mom.
Every country in the parade of nations was introduced by a cyclist holding a placard.
The biggest cheers for Bach’s speech came when he welcomed the team of refugee athletes, saying the Olympics were the answer to the world’s “growing selfishness”.
Advertisement
But with more than a dash of “gambiarra”, the Brazilian art of quick-fixes and making do, Rio de Janeiro is ready.
