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But at least it wasn’t “woke”

please god tell me no one is seriously considering ahmedabad or doha for '36 after the beauty that is this week. the city/venues are unbelievable. give it to istanbul, i guess.

Absolutely scandalous that the IOC of all organisations needs to put out such a statement to put culture warriors like JK Rowling in their place.

I believe Athens worked perfectly for a stadium setting. The sight of a lone figures in a vast space, the stunning fire rings, and the huge head breaking apart to turn a dish of water into the Aegean Sea with islands were amazing. It worked on the micro and macro. The ceremony’s thoughtful approach was very greek and very philosophical. It explored what it means to be human, looked at the human form, cultural evolution, and our DNA. This reflected the Olympics' celebration of human physical potential. It was truly brilliant! I can rave about this ceremony all day.

behold: the paris 2024 olympic games opening ceremony media guide https://press.paris2024.org/assets/paris-2024-media-guide-opening-ceremony-of-the-paris-2024-olympic-games-07-2024-pdf-115ac-7578a.html the scene-by-scene section is all in Page 9 - you just have to scroll horizontally to view each scene

For me, Athens had a perfect opening ceremony.

Full offense - are you stupid? of course you immediately bringing up the 1936 Olympics in response answers my own question.

The comparison between Hitler's games and a woman accused of being transgender, I didn't see it coming in my bingo

@olimpicgamer

And why should that be? Because you said so??

Makes these early mornings worthwhile

You all have quite a relay team, huh? Congrats on the OR at the 4x200.

Someone's posted the full Synchronicite segment's score: According to comments on YouTube, a full album is going to be released soon with everything on it.

The theme didn't seem necessarily that Paris-centric or even French-centric. However, the final moment was appropriately Eiffel-Tower-centric, featuring a singer I associate with Canada instead of France or Paris. No big deal to me that a sound track was used instead of live sound. Although I prefer hearing imperfections of a live performance instead of what comes out of a studio soundboard. However, the imperfection of flying the Olympic flag upside down during the 2024 opening had to be due to a lack of enough rehearsal.

Stockholms Olympiastadion from 1912 is my favorite, has seen more athletics world records than any other stadium in the world, and it is still appropriately sized for athletics meets (hosting the annual DN Galan) more than a century later. Meanwhile many of the large Olympic stadiums are rarely used for athletics meets; for example Munich's stadium is an architectural triumph but AFAIK it only hosts an athletics event once every couple of decades.

I feel like I'm hearing my 4-year-old cousin tell me he doesn't like surimi sticks even though he's never tasted them. Except my 4-year-old cousin doesn't write me an essay explaining why surimi sticks aren't good.

@Red Centaur I agree that as a member of the Stadium audience for both the dress rehearsal and the actual Ceremony, it was made for stadium audience with the action very close to spectators. It was a beautiful smaller stadium than the mega Sydney one and in the Athens Olympic Stadium audience we felt very involved and in awe of what was unfolding in front of us close up. By coincidence I am right at this second looking at the Athens Olympic Stadium from the Mall of Athens about 500m away. i just took a photo and trying to post it here on my mobile . But hope at least this link works https://imgur.com/gallery/athens-olympic-stadium-11-40am-1-august-2024-7Ho5TBE

It kind of suffered of the same "focused fof TV audiences" sickness but not as godawful as Paris. And nevertheless it was a very dignified and beautiful show which is often forgotten because of Beijing

That would be a tough sell since they already regularly light it for USC Games and other notable events. If there's a 2nd one at SoFi I just hope it's not boring. Or maybe it will be something completely new and original and instantly iconic. Who knows!?

this norwegian swimmer, Henrik Christiansen, keeps appearing on my tiktok feed and he's like obsessed with the chocolate muffins from the olympic village... every video he's uploaded since the opening ceremony has been dedicated to these chocolate muffins. so there's at least one positive thing coming from the village 🙂

The Athens 2004 Triathlon compeitions were held in and around the pristine waters of Vouliagmeni Beach on the outskirts of Athens. It’s a beautiful sheltered bay with gorgeous views from the cliffs and winding road on one side. I worked as team leader at the turning point for cycling and running on the cliffs above Vouliagmeni. Two magical days I’ll never forget.

Wait, are you really judging the Paris opening ceremony without having seen it in full?!

It was on the Mediterranean, at a seaside suburb called Vouliagmeni. And Tokyo's was In Tokyo Bay (Odaiba, a large artificial island). It had views of the Ranbow Bridge.

One of my big hopes for Paris is that Germany looks over the border & sees that the Olympics is more than the dictator who's unfortunately at the top of the IOC, and is re-inspired to seriously pursue hosting. I assume that won't happen until Tom is gone though, which will probably be too late for 36.

my fellow americans - we won. the OBS broadcast of the opening ceremony is now on peacock (just make sure to choose the replay dated July 27 and not the July 26 one)

That‘s actually not true. Spending on high level sports has increased again since Rio or so with various „reforms“ to produce better results but somehow it has again failed to deliver. Though the first week is traditionally a weaker one for us and we might pick up a bit in the second half. Still, I think a lot especially in less focus sports like shooting, judo or fencing is down to athletes not being able to cope with the pressure of finally being in the eyes of the nation. One thing to win a world cup tournament that nobody notices and another to get to the Grand Palais or the shooting range in Châteauroux. Psychology is not the best asset in German team preparation, I think. But let‘s also be honest: We all know how GDR success came about and that‘s simply not acceptable anymore. The fact that Angelina Köhler just lost out bronze to one of those Chinese swimmers who should have been Valiyeva‘d by WADA/IOC triggered strong reactions for instance.

It does lend itself to some great imagery

Well if I am going to get banned it might as well be for this. American Christianity is blasphemous. It is heresy. It lacks any basic understanding of the Bible nor the context in which the Bible was written. Irenaeus would be shocked and appalled by beliefs held by Christians in America. American Christians have corrupted the Bible, Jesus and the Church to justify and glorify their own sense of self-importance and superiority. To the point they gave the world Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. Jesus was the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end, emphasis on the end. No new revelation was to come after the word of Christ. Yet here comes the Americans and all their supposed "Great Awakenings' giving us prosperity gospels and televangelists. Yet Jesus said it would be easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven. And don't get me started on how those 'beliefs' compelled you to elected the felonious serial philanderer and admitted sexual predator that is Donald J Trump. Who looks like he has another failed marriage on his hands. And y'all want to act scandalized by a fat lesbian white woman playing the role of a brown middle eastern Jew riffing on a painting that depicted a bunch of middle eastern Jews as a bunch of white dudes. Look at yourself.

Sounds like a great idea. Traditional and new

After yesterday‘s convincing start, not a great day for „Team D“ in Paris with several team sports losses and high medal hopes in archery and canoe slalom crushed, plus narrow misses in Judo, Fencing and especially the two 4th places in the pool. Though Melvin Imodou coming within a few 1/100 of gold is actually amazing. But all that lack of medals is totally outweighed for me by the fact that I HAVE ARRIVED AT MY FIRST OLYMPICS!!! First stop was indeed La Défense where we could witness the crowd going extatic over Léon Marchand. A fantastic atmosphere, now looking forward to the next few days (though tomorrow I have to give in to family pressure and instead of worshipping Pierre de Coubertin, we‘ll be filling Walt Disney‘s coffers…).

The next Opening Ceremony will be in the Coliseum which is a proper stadium and an iconic venue which will be the 3rd time the Coliseum will be used for an Olympic Games Ceremony. They'll not attempt to use the Sunset Strip for an open-air ceremony

Even more when you already have existing technology to bomb the clouds. Its fun that, of all the things they worried about which would happen friday night, they forgt the most basic one. Anyway...one of the biggest criticism regarding the parade of nations/boats was the placards and how they blocked the view of many flagbearers. Also the way the flagbearers were positioned in many of the boats. Seems like they didn't really thought about this happening and it stole the spotlight from them. Also, many newspapers are also taking note that Lady Gaga performance wasn't live. Imagine paying hundreds of Euros just to sit there and watch a prerecorded rehearsal. The more I rewatch the ceremony, while the parts I did favored are still of my liking, the parts I disliked the most get worse as I see them.

With the woman boxer today being flattened in a few seconds by a non-DNA female, the 2024 games are so far turning out to be quite memorable. Ironic too. The 1936 games were also sort of similarly ironic. https://presidentlincoln.illinois.gov/learn/educators/educator-resources/teaching-guides/exposing-the-hypocrisy-of-the-1936-berlin-olympics/

Part of the problem is that recordings of the opening so far haven't been posted. The IOC is reportedly cracking down hard on vloggers for showing even brief snippets of it. You'd think publicity about "Olympics" would be favored by the IOC and 2024 OOC. As for what can't be challenged on legal grounds, variations of word-of-mouth about the opening ceremony are showing up in other ways:

Yea, pretty much so, although segments of a ceremony I admittedly fast forward through. But not super fast, just like 1.24x or 1.5x faster. As for judging how an Olympics and its OOC should be rated, everything is up for grabs. I'd never write off Paris 2024 if its budget and attendance figures end up being better than other summer games. IOW, even if its opening fell flat, that's just one moving part of 2024's entire operation.

I'm admittedly basing it on second-hand sources. I also know that what I like, various other people don't like, and visa versa. But unless what's being judged is too ambiguous to know for sure, I'll probably have the same opinion based on other sources. Things like legal complaints alone indicate something was really off about 2024's opening. There have been way less controversial aspects of past Olympic games that I didn't care for, so if this is exceptionally controversial, I doubt my opinion would change if I watched it with my own eyes. But, okay, I won't deny I'm no authority on the details of Paris 2024. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0xj358y7n5o

Actually, over the past 40 years, I thought the opening of the winter games in Beijing 2022 came sort of close to setting the right tone. In the thread on LA, I've also cited 1984 as setting the right tone too. I thought Beijing 2008 was too China-fied, but I'd rather have that than last Friday's "WTF?!" along the Seine.