Opening ceremony ratings often set the tone for Olympic coverage.
Advertisement
About 150,000 visitors entered the multi-stadium complex on Sunday.
The demonstrators also took aim at the Summer Games, saying a huge amount of money spent on staging the Olympics would have been better spent on development projects.
And if you’re looking for your song of the summer, Team USA just released an Olympic-themed music video to Weezer’s song “I Love The USA” on its YouTube channel.
So he led the American team into Maracana Stadium on Friday for the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics.
70,000 people gathered at the iconic Maracana Stadium to welcome the 10,400 athletes from 207 nations and dozens of world leaders, including United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, assembled for the first Olympics to be staged in South America.
In other action, reigning world champion swimmer Yulia Efimova of Russian Federation was booed after winning her heat in the 100-meter breaststroke preliminaries, after serving a 16-month suspension for doping and then testing positive this year for the now-banned pharmaceutical meldonium. Instead, that honor went to Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima, a Brazilian former marathoner who won a bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
Demonstrators denounced corruption and overspending on the Games, amid Brazil’s worst economic downturn in decades.
The ceremony began quietly with several projected images of water and presentations to pay tribute to the environment and the indigenous people of Brazil. He will be replacing his ally-turned-enemy, suspended President Dilma Rousseff. Fewer than 25 foreign heads of state were listed as attending, with others seemingly staying away to avoid giving the impression of taking sides amid Brazil’s leadership uncertainty.
There are 19 days of Olympics viewing, from women’s soccer on August 3, two days before the opening ceremony to the closing ceremony on August 21.
Swimming star Michael Phelps led the US contingent into the stadium during last night’s traditional Parade of Nations. Only Brazil’s team, which marched last, drew a louder roar from the crowd than the refugees. As a outcome, Russia’s team was whittled down from a hoped-for 389 athletes to around 270.
Advertisement
Downtown’s was lit by a runner after the opening ceremony finished: part of an attempt to involve the city in an event which, given its difficulties, many have protested is a gross extravagance. Managed at a budget less than half of what was spent at the London 2012 opening, Rio was indeed not meant to match the standards set by its predecessors. When 40 percent of the homes in Brazil have no sanitation, you can’t really be spending a billion reals for a show, “Meirelles said”.
