Hours before the start of the opening show, thousands of Brazilian protesters angry at political upheaval, corruption and the cost of the Olympics had blocked traffic on the streets of Rio.
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“With the Olympic Games as a catalyst, you have achieved in just seven years what generations before you could only dream of”. It was unlike Beijing 2008 or London 2012 in regards to pomp and glamour and lavishness, yet the show at the Maracana left its audience feeling fulfilled with a soulful, vibrant and ingenious display of life – the authentic South American life.
Athletes from 206 countries as well as a team of refugee Olympians paraded into the iconic soccer stadium that is Brazil’s most storied sporting venue.
But the boos that greeted acting Brazilian president Michel Temer’s short address to open the Games, the smattering of jeers the Russian team received and the catcalls that followed a reference to government funding tell a different story. After all, nowhere parties quite like Rio.
“We just know Martha (Karolyi) doesn’t want us to go because there is so much walking around on our feet for 10 hours or something insane, because so many athletes, and it’s actually better for us, because we actually need to rest because our preliminary is Sunday”, said Aly Raisman.
Rio hoped to put naysayers to rest after months of upheaval leading up to the Olympics by focusing on the positives of the South American nation of Brazil.
Defending Olympic men’s tennis champion Andy Murray will be Great Britain’s flag bearer inside Rio’s Maracana stadium on Friday.
The show drew homegrown stars, like supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who walked across the stadium to the sound of bossa nova hit “Girl from Ipanema” and tropicalia legends Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.
Even the lighting of the Olympic cauldron was not without controversy.
From Brazilian recording star Luiz Melodia’s rendition of “Aquele Abraco”, the “farewell song” penned by his legendary countryman Gilberto Gil, to the show’s evocation of Brazil’s ethnic diversity and status as “the biggest garden on the planet” (this is the home of the Amazon rain forest, after all), the ceremony gave these Games an unmistakable sense of time and place. “I hope we have wonderful games in Brazil”.
Brazil now has two presidents – Dilma Rousseff is suspended as she awaits an impeachment trial.
The five Olympic rings were revealed after the procession of athletes, and rather than the traditional colorful rings we are used to seeing, Rio used trees to present them, another nod to the environmental message.
The 2016 Olympics run until August 21.
“More than 70,000 people that were in the Marakana stadium and more than two dozen world leaders cheered all of the athletes, but there was really a touching moment when people took to their feet cheering on this refugee team competing for the first time in the Olympics”. The IOC approved 271 Russian athletes to compete in Rio, while rejecting 118 after weeks of controversy and acrimony that often found Bach and other top IOC officials on the defensive in the wake of World Anti-Doping Agency report detailing a widespread, state-sponsored doping program within Russia.
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Iran picked a woman, archer Zahra Nemati, as flag-bearer for its team made up overwhelmingly of men. “Only God is more important than my health. This is not the Rio we wanted the world to see”.
