Ahead of last night’s opening ceremony, which took place at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, the general consensus was that people weren’t getting their hopes up for a fantastic opening ceremony. The biggest question that everyone was asking was who would be lighting the Olympic torch.
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Rio kicked off the 2016 Olympic Games with an all-encompassing opening ceremony showcasing Brazilian culture from pre-colonial times to modern metropolis, capoeira to funk and everything in between.
The ceremony was dominated by dancers and projections, at least partially because organizers, as they said, did not have the limitless funds some other countries have invested in flashy, streams of props seen in recent Olympics.
The ceremony is officially declared open after the cauldron is lit by Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima. He went on to finish that race still, winning bronze.
Brought to life in vibrant green and blue, the kickoff to the Summer Games paid tribute to the rainforests of Brazil. It wasn’t quite as action-packed as the London Olympics in 2012 – in fact, compared to the 2012 Opening Ceremony, it could be described as lacking a bit of flash.
Most of the athletes from India came for the ceremony except for a handful who had a game the next day, dressed in Blue with a touch of yellow. As smooth Bossa Nova began to reverberate through the stadium, “The Girl From Ipanema” entered the scene, strutting her way across the cat walk.
The honor of declaring the games open will fall to Michel Temer, Brazil’s unpopular interim president, standing in for suspended President Dilma Rousseff.
These are hard times for a country that was enjoying rapid economic growth when Rio won the right to host the Games but is now in recession and with a government in tatters.
Bach meanwhile said the first Olympic Games staged in South America had helped transform Rio de Janeiro, despite the failure to deliver certain infrastructure promises and a pledge to clean up the city’s heavily polluted Guanabara Bay.
NBC will broadcast the opening ceremony on a one-hour tape delay because it wants the entertainment spectacle to be shown completely in US prime time.
Gisele Bündchen’s reception may have been topped only when the Refugee Olympic Team arrived at the Parade of Nations, dancing and waving Olympic flags.
With “USA” emblazoned on the back of his jacket, Michael Phelps carried the flag for the US team, the largest with 549 competitors.
The 41-strong Hong Kong delegation, led at the opening ceremony by swimmer Stephanie Au Hoi-shun, comprises 22 athletes and 19 officials.
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Each athlete was presented with a seed and a cartridge of soil to enable them to plant a native tree of Brazil, which will ultimately form an “Athletes Forest” made up of 207 different species – one for each delegation. Some wondered if it actually ever lit up, but we’re pretty sure it did.
