It will trace its history from forested land, through colonization by Portugal, and into a nation of astounding diversity and contrasts.
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The floor of the stadium will be a vast stage for projections, a substitute for more expensive structures in a nod to Brazil’s economic troubles.
Performers decked in silvery suits folded and unfolded glittering silver sheets that transformed into giant cushions they then beat like drums.
“I declare the Rio Olympics open, and celebrate the 31st Olympic Games of the modern era”, Temer said to formally signal the commencement of competitions as the Rio night sky was lit with fireworks emanating from Maracana Stadium.
Performers dance during the opening ceremony for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, Aug. 5, 2016.
Mr Temer, a 75-year-old law professor, became acting president after the Senate voted in favour of launching an impeachment trial against Ms Rousseff, suspending her.
“It is not enough to stop harming the planet, it’s time to begin healing it. This will be our Olympic message: Earthlings, let’s replant, let’s save the planet”, said the creators of the opening ceremony. 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.
Bundchen, in a slinky metallic dress, wowed the crowd, unlike the row of Brazilian government officials sitting in the front row.
From August 5 to August 21, 10,500 athletes from 207 teams will compete, including representatives from Kosovo and South Sudan, countries that are participating for the first time in the Olympics.
Led by its only individual gold medallist Abhinav Bindra, who is in his swansong Olympics, as the flag bearer, the Indian contingent entered the stadium as 95th country.
The U.S. team was led by swimmer Michael Phelps – his first time ever participating in the open ceremonies.
Probably the most effective sequence was the one paying grim tribute to Brazil’s bad centuries of slavery, with dancers turning large wheels with balletic grace and others bent under the weight of great wooden beams. As a effect, Russia’s team was whittled down from a hoped-for 389 athletes to around 270.
Iran picked a woman, archer Zahra Nemati, as flag-bearer for its team made up overwhelmingly of men.
After the grandeur of Beijing’s opening ceremony in 2008 and the high-tech, cheeky inventiveness of London’s in 2012, Rio’s was earthier, less swish and still inventive. There was also a nod to African art and culture, and the key role it plays in Brazilian society to this very day.#. We are also willing to tell the world to stop attacking our home.
Russian Federation was threatened with blanket expulsion just weeks before the start of the games after a World Anti-Doping Agency investigation revealed state-sponsored doping on a massive scale.
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Ceremony director Fernando Meirelles said his intention was to give space to the often marginalized minority groups like the 300,000 Indians of 305 ethnicities who speak 274 languages, most of whom live on protected reservations in the Amazon region. But it came as Brazil battles a crippling recession, double-digit unemployment and rising crime, and as Temer fights off political turmoil.
