Olympian2004

And now don't shame our nice country too much, Thomas!

I asked that myself, too. Well, it's simply fashionable in these Rio ceremonies not being able to speak English. "Harmony" is "hamony" and "green" is "red".

And he is talking and talking and talking forever once more... Oh well, only two more ceremonies with him at the helm...

My God, why does Nuzman always give his speeches with those shabby papers in his hand? It only over-accentuates his shaking. Who is the media advisor of that guy?

Does Nuzman have Parkinson's? I thought that he was shaking that heavily during the opening ceremony because he was nervous, but this looks serious.

Oh no, and what a downer after that super fucking sexy handover segment - welcome to the "garbage and ****" segment, aka the speeches by Carlos Nuzman and Thomas Bach.

One word: WOW!!!!!!!! Tokyo, this was the best handover ever!

I never was too fond of Asia (nothing racist, I just wasn't really interested in going on vacation there) - but now I want to LIVE in Tokyo! If it's anything like that presentation in real life, it must be the coolest city in the world!

We sure are!!!

I'm sitting in front of my TV with dropped jaw. This is REALLY cool and new! If they keep up with this for their opening ceremony in 2020, then we're in for a super cool and impressive opening!

Haha, and there is the Prime Minister acting as Super Mario! How cool is that? Or how cringeworthy? However, I like that they are poking fun at themselves!

Very impressive! Kimigayo is a different, but always very dignified and majestic anthem - if I remember correctly, the oldest or one of the oldest national anthems in the world. And that Japanese flag projection combined with that was super nice, too! And now vibrant and young Tokyo! Oh, and Hello Kitty... erm, nice! No, I like the fun part. They seem to remember their own 2020 bid presentation with that enthusiastic nice lady.

Nice touch that the mayor of Rio is wearing some quite Latin-looking hat and the mayor/governor of Tokyo is wearing a kimono. Classy and different!

Oh no, there are those kids again... Sorry Rio, but that was one of the few weak parts of the opening ceremony, and you let them sing in their cringeworthy English again?

Haha, I love this live chat already now!

Mmmm, Daniel Gyurta makes up for having that Putin bitch on stage. Hot piece of man!

Only because he banned Russia from all IAAF competition (together with his IAAF colleagues, that is), Seb Coe is not already my dream IOC president. One shouldn't forget that he was very chummy with that corrupt bastard Lamine Diack. But I digress... First of all, hi guys! I fell asleep on my couch and now I'm pretty late for the party and I missed most of the artistic section. Good that it's 2016 and they invented such things like the "ZDF Mediathek" where they provide the videos of all major broadcasts. Now let's see our nice new IOC members: Britta Heidemann and then ... that homo

I knew that I would forget something. Of course there were also impressive athletes from other nations, and here let me first point out how surprised I am about that super strong showing of Team GB. I believe it's a premiere in Olympic history (maybe besides the sports super powers USA and formerly the USSR) that a team is able to maintain its strong showing from its home Games also in the following Games. It's now apparent that Team GB's success in 2012 was far more than "home advantage" and I'm truly impressed by the results of their strong investment in their athletes in the past ten y

Well, where shall I start? Maybe I should start with the most important thing: The overall enjoyment I really, really enjoyed watching the Olympic events in Rio on TV - and sometimes regretted I wasn't there in person. Okay, that's probably nothing new since I pretty much enjoyed watching all recent Olympic Games (some more, some less). But this time around, we saw dramatic, exciting, impressive and sometimes simply annoying performances yet again. For me, these were two weeks filled with lots of differents sports (albeit only passively, not actively :D) and with a considerable lack

Oh well, I always forget how quickly two weeks of Olympic excitement go by... It's verdict time - this time on the Games of the XXXI Olympiad (and, if we want to expand this topic later, maybe also on the XV Summer Paralympics)! How did you perceive these Games and how do you rate them? My verdict will follow.

Unlike the opening ceremony, I might be around for the live chat this time - and I might even be as crazy as staying awake throughout the whole ceremony, even despite I have to work on Monday. But hey, it's the last time I will have red eyes because of watching Rio 2016 events (because I probably won't stay awake for the Paralympic night time broadcasts)! If they are able to recreate the really joyous atmosphere of the "Pais Tropical" and "Isto Aqui, o que É?" (the song sung by Anitta, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso) segments, we are in for a great closing ceremony, I think. But it might

I know, I know - didn't want to play that down. So were you guys following these boards all the time, or only in the past few months, weeks or days? If you hang around already during our London cauldron discussion in 2012, you must have been quite entertained, too.

Haha, amazing how even Baron goes all "Great work, man!" as soon as the designer appears. Great to see a real cauldron designer on this board, Anthony (I assume that your account is authentic)! You just made GamesBids history!

It was created by an American designer, but built by the German company Hüttinger (situated near Nuremberg), yes. By the way, only the outdoor cauldron was built by the German company, the Maracana cauldron was built elsewhere.

I rather turn my attention back to the current cauldron. I think it could have been worse, but that implies as well that it could have been better. I think it's somewhat stale if you have several other sculptures looking almost exactly like a cauldron. And Rio didn't even try everything to keep the cauldron design a secret - but on the other hand, they didn't have to. Keeping the cauldron completely hidden under covers is something that actually only London did (and was able to, since their cauldron was located inside the stadium and not on its roof or even outside the stadium). I li