olympian.br

Aerial view of the Maracana Stadium from 3 days ago:

Like London had a hard act to follow after Beijing. The true is that every Olympic is different. China laid its own mark when they hosted, London laid its own mark now and Rio will do the same in 2016. Rio will have its ups and downs but in the end, I'm sure it's gonna be fun and enjoyable party. I don't think the brazilian organizers have to worry about London too much, they have to make their own Olympics now and hopefully people in the world will enjoy it, if not, I'm sure brazilians will love the experience either way. This is gonna be a south american Olympics, like it or not.

They could use corcovado while lightining the caldron (maybe the flame will came from there), but not exactly put the caldron up there. I don't know, either way, the discussion about the 2016 caldron shpuld be even more interesting than the one we had about london's.

I don't think so. I just saw the infield on brazilian tv. It's covered with an stylized union flag (or something like that). The weather looks cloudy, maybe we'll have light rain during the ceremony.

He's probably talking about brazilian's forests. I have a feeling the CC will surpasse the OC by far!

And here we go again... :lol:

Talking about the olympic flag, here's an epic entrance in Barcelona:

It looks like it's gonna be dance-heavy. I'm glad they're going to showcase the national culture instead of focusing just on Rio and samba. Should be fun.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183829/After-spectacular-opening-mini-London-Eye-bring-curtain-down.html

It looks like the flags are burning, not cool at all in my opinion.

This will probably be the main topic in this forum from now to 2016, but the true is that Rio doesn't need to construct another athletic stadium. Joao Havelange stadium already serves its purpose (for athletics competition, not for ceremonies), building another stadium just to acomodate the olympic tradition is NOT part of Rio's plans. Maracana stadium is being renovated for the 2014 world cup and FIFA rules wouldn't allow an athletic track to be part of the new stadium. So, since the ceromonies' stadium needs to be a big venue, they are going with Maracana. Maybe Rio will have two flames, one for the ceremony and another for the Olympic Park. By the way, the athletic stadium in Rio will not be located in the Olympic park, another first I guess. Anyway, I digress. Back to London, I'm glad that we will finally see the flame from now on.

I gotta say: I LOVE the gymsnastic arena look. The jarring pink color is really vibrant and different. I hope Rio can do something like that in 2016.

The blue cloth bit is new to me, sounds good!

There's no way of knowing if the caldron it's in the middle of the stadium or in the tor-end, at least not from the video we have. It's much more logical though for it to be in the tor-end and then be suspended to the roof plataform.

I say tree-end. It's where there is a roof plataform, isn't there?

I talking about the live stream from the stadium

any link?

Yeah, I think we finally caught a view of the flame.... From the video it looks like the flame is lit when the caldron is already high up on the roof, that is different from what I thought.

I think you make lots of valid points here. In your scenario that caldron would be positioned underneath the tor, which is pretty likely, and the river would be the corridor leading up to it, not the most amazing idea, but doable, safe and simple. But what about the hole in the center of the stadium? What's the purpose of that?

It could be fireworks, I think the light is just too huge to be the caldron, but I could be wrong.

Is the Olympic Stadium close to the Thames though? I mean, is there a way to get the flame from Hampton Court to the Stadium by boat? How long does it take?

If it's an indoor caldron, they could do just like Rio did in the 2007 Panam games: http://pan2007.globo.com/ESP/Home/foto/0,,11215196-EX,00.jpg It was small but elegant.

So... http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/18975735 We may be getting someone not famous lightining the caldron.

I'll give it a try... It basically says the caldron design is spectacular and futuristic and that the caldron lightning is integrated with the OC direction. It also says that Heatherwick has asked David Cameron's permission to use that particular kind of lightining and that the caldron was built in northern England where it has been through tests already. Maybe they are not using gas pipe lines but other methods and that's what they need the PM permission for...