Let The Games Begin

The pomp and pageantry of the 2008 Beijing Olympics is formally underway. In what has been dubbed as the most extravagant opening ceremony in the history of the Games, China officially welcomed the world and its multitude of athletes to their capital city with a dazzling display of dancers, fireworks, and.. flying former Olympians? Over the top productions aside, director Zhang Yimou certainly showed the world that China was very much capable of putting on a show for the ages, even without the help of Steven Spielberg.

Before I go into the few highlights I was able to observe, albeit in a limited way, on local TV. I just have to say how appalling it was the way one of our local cable providers showed the broadcast (I can’t speak for the others since I’m not aware how those were handled.). First, they blacked-out the ongoing coverage from a different Chinese channel (CCTV) by replacing it with a cartoon channel in, what do you know, Chinese. This was a loss because although the event was covered in Mandarin on CCTV, at least they showed the event uninterrupted. The local broadcast courtesy of channel 9, contained more commercial breaks than a finale of PBB. For those old enough to remember, the only thing I can recall comparable to this was during one of those Mike Tyson fights in the late 80’s, where the fight would be so short that they had to air around 15 minutes of commercial for every minute of action.

Anyway, aside from the endless stream of commercial breaks, here are a few random observations:

• The effect of a thousand dancers wearing luminous suits (are those LEDs?) running around the stadium in perfect coordination was really breathtaking. Among the humongous props used, the unfolding scroll effect in the middle of field plus the 360 degree finale are particularly nice touches
• The order in which the countries were introduced was, to say the least, confusing. Following “a sequence based on the number of strokes it takes to write their names in Chinese”. I’m sure a lot of people, Chinese included, were left scratching their heads as to when a certain country would make an appearance. Some of the less well-known countries and territories are obscure enough that I doubt most Chinese would have correctly guessed how their names are actually written.
• Denmark had a big guy holding their flag with ease– using one hand. This was remarkable since most of the other countries’ flag bearers, including China’s 7′6″ player Yao Ming, had to use both hands to hold steady.
• Notable NBA players/flag-bearers: Manu Ginobili led the Argentinean delegation; likewise, former fantasy basketball superstar Andrei Kirilenko was accorded the honor by Russia; ditto Dirk Nowitzki for Germany and one time Indiana Pacer Sarunas Jasikevicius for Lithuania; Yao Ming rounded out about the only flag-bearing athletes I could name, Roger Federer aside ;P.
• Naturalized Sudanese runner Lopez Lomong led the warmly received U.S. delegation in what can best be described as a subtle protest of the Darfur issue in a relatively trouble-free parade. Chinese-Taipei (Taiwan) was also surprisingly cheered loudly, considering the strained diplomatic relations between them and the host country. Japan is probably the only major country who received a cool reception, and even that could be attributed to the audience just getting warmed up as they were one of the first countries to march.
• Seems like there were more cameras and video recorders being used among the marching athletes than in the audience. Some athletes even stopped during mid-march to take pictures of the attractive Chinese dancers lining the parade route.
• Speaking of those white-dressed Chinese dancers, there was a noticeable drop-off in their energy from the time the parade started up to middle of the seemigly endless stream of athletes. Of course, their enthusiasm picked up towards the end as host China was the last to emerge.
• The attire worn by the athletes varied from extremely casual (shorts and t-shirts!?) to formal suits and national costumes. Even within groups from the same country, you could hardly classify them as ‘uniform’. Pat Forde of ESPN wrote a great article covering the fashion hits and misses.
• The way the Olympic cauldron was lit is admittedly creative, although somewhat predictable in a Zhang Yimou sort of way. The spacewalking Li Ning kind of reminds me of the flying martial arts scenes in Zhang’s films (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to state the obvious). Would have been cheesy if done by any other host country but, hey, China’s been doing it in their kung-fu films since like, forever.

Can’t wait to start seeing the medal table fill-up with results. Michael Phelps’ swim to immortality and the U.S. basketball teams’ performance would probably overshadow everything else, though. In one of the few gatherings that truly deserve to be opened with the cliché, let the Games begin!