bgdrewsif

Wow... that picture says it all.. and the huge Paralympic logo in the lagoon, BEAUTIFUL! Rio did good on this one... if only London could have done something like this... Im afraid the garish neon colors of the London 'look of the games' might burn out my retinas while watching on tv... I might have to switch to black and white to view them safely...

Well i'll happily take this over the disgrace London is schlepping off on the global Olympic movement... I like that it is 3-dimensional, sculptural, and it has no beginning or end, it continues in an infinite loop... not terribly revolutionary, but beautiful, simple, and infinitely complex all at once... well done Rio!

And of course Tom Brokaw's tribute to Canada before the 2010 opening ceremony: Go Canada!

Well there never is a better introduction to the Olympics than those made by NBC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyt0MI8OSdQ&feature=related I remember them quite fondly... I was a freshman at University that year... wow I feel old...

Well I don't know what the Canadians think but the 2002 Salt Lake games are still VERY fondly remembered here in the states and still playing a frequent mention in our politics with Mitt Romney still having his management of the games touted as being in his favor to be President of the United States in 2012... Largely forgettable I think not...

Yes! Let Toronto have the Summer games... really close to the U.S. and great for TV coverage with the Eastern time zone and we don't have to pay for the party!

What about Russia? I expected them to have done better up to this point...

Well, clearly these photos prove tht the British press is right about how awful these games are... look at the thousands of angry rioters trying to escape the awful, dreadful misery that is the vancouver olympics!

I agree, I also found the Vancouver 2010 handover at the Torino CC to be fascinating... it seems unfortunate to me that so man Canadians were embarrassed by the handover presentation. If you want to see a handover presentation that is truly embarrassing look up the atlanta 1996 handover at the closing ceremonies in Barcelona on YouTube... that was really an embarrassment. Yet the actual opening ceremony 4 years later was so great. (I was 13 years old in 1996 and there with my parents, I still remember it vividly today)

the video can only be watched by a computer in Sweden due to copyright restrictions

NBC coverage is live in the eastern and central time zones and is on a tape delay in the mountain and pacific time zones... this is because if they did not do this the opening ceremonies would be happening at 4:30 in the afternoon pacific time and most people would miss them as they would be at work or trying to get home from work most working americans in the west would miss the first hour or two of the ceremonies... Being that I live in Arizona, I will be watching this on delay so Im about to get away from here to avoid any more spoilers when the ceremonies actually begin in 2 hours.

Here is a link to a ceremony preview from Nine network in Australia... at around 0:25 there is about 15 seconds of film from the rehearsal showing what the ceremony will look like n tv with several new scenes including a native person surrounded by light, the camera following the olympic flag into the stadium.. and some other stuff from the infamous youtube video but at floor level broadcast quality.. Nine ceremony preview