A runner carries the Olympic flame as the torch relay continues on its journey to the opening ceremony of Rio’s 2016 Summer Olympics, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2016.
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According to tradition, Greece started a long parade of nations through Maracana, with 207 teams represented.
The acting President of Brazil, Michel Temer, declared the Games open.
The rings were yet another reference to the global environmental crisis, an inherent theme in much of the opening ceremony and this year’s Games.
A smattering of boos could be heard as local government officials took their seats.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said the refugee athletes were sending “a message of hope to the millions of refugees around the globe”.
The athletes were given tree seeds, plus cartridges of soil.
The jeers Brazil’s interim leader Temer was trying to avoid at the outset of the ceremony could not be avoided later on, though, as his short address to officially open the Olympics was drowned out by loud catcalls.
Iran’s flag bearer was Zahra Nemati, their first ever female flag-carrier who will compete in archery despite being paralyzed in both legs.
The opening ceremony will give the Games temporary respite from the criticism of its organisation, although the next 16 days of athletic competition could also help provide reassurance to a nervous IOC. With a limited budget, the outcome of a biting recession that roiled preparations for South America’s first Olympics, Brazil laced its high-energy opening party for the games of the 31st Olympiad with a sobering message of the dangers of global warming. Although it escaped a blanket ban, Russian Federation is paying the price in the shape of a smaller team, whittled down from a 389 athletes to around 270.
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, the two-time defending champion in the Olympic 100- and 200-meter races, skipped the ceremony, as expected.
The Rio Olympics will run through August 21.
The team of six men and four women is completing under the Olympic flag. Another woman pushed Nemati’s wheelchair.
The ceremony’s creative bosses, who included Oscar-nominated director Fernando Meirelles, described Gisele’s appearance as being her “last catwalk” and she coolly strolled across the floor of the stadium in a gold-sequined dress to the relaxing tune of arguably Brazil’s most famous song, the bossa nova jazz classic The Girl from Ipanema.
“It is pretty tacky to be overspending”, he said. When 40 percent of the homes in Brazil have no sanitation, you can’t really be spending a billion reals for a show.
Gymnastics could unearth a new heroine in America’s teenage star Simone Biles, while rugby and golf return to the Olympic program after gaps of 92 years and 112 years respectively.
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The showcase began with Samba great Paulinho Da Viola playing the Brazilian national anthem, while eye-catching performances and fireworks were a fitting beginning to what promises to be a captivating Games. It didn’t have the same props that were used in the London Olympics, it maybe wasn’t as flash at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but there was a big message with the Opening Ceremony last night – it had a lot of feeling, and a lot of depth to it.
