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    Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

    1. Dancing topless carnival girls? Come on, every other carnival in Rio features them.

    2. No dull speeches about how this will be a clean and fair and blah blah blah. This shebang doesn't start until midnight, UK time.

    3. Find a way (it is the digital age) of fast-tracking all the athletes in behind their flags, without needing to announce them all individually. With 207 countries, that's going to take two hours.

    4. More topless dancing girls (oh, did I already suggest that?) Well, again.

    5. No Pélé. Please.

    #2
    Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

    Pele is ill and won't be there.

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      #3
      Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

      I didn't mean to imply him any ill-will, and hope he gets better. But he's not an Olympian. And so should play no part, really, in this, despite being Brazil's most recognizable sportsman. It would be like having David Beckham at the London one.

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        #4
        Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

        Rogin the Armchair fan wrote:

        3. Find a way (it is the digital age) of fast-tracking all the athletes in behind their flags, without needing to announce them all individually. With 207 countries, that's going to take two hours.
        I quite like that interminable parade, as the commentators get tired and start to go off message ... "Yemen? Famous for being in an episode of Friends" ... "Zambia? Is that bloody Mugabe still there?".

        In 1984 the American networks helpfully provided viewers with a guide to each nation. Britain was "about the size of Oregon". Go Team Portlandia!

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          #5
          Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

          Not sure about Andy Murray as GBs flag bearer. Yeah, he might be the most famous member of the squad or as near as dammit (and Sports Personality of the Year twice since the last games), and yeah he is a gold and silver medalist. Which were important staging posts in his career. But the gold medal in singles was just that, a staging post. His career defining moments came elsewhere temporally, if not geographically. The Olympics is not the pinnacle for a Tennis player.

          There have been worse Tennis player flag carrier choices, Maria Sharapova in London springs to mind. Murray at least has a full and deep commitment to representing his country, rather than picking and choosing as fits best to promote his personal brand. He has been to a couple of Games, and was clearly devastated to lose early in Bejing. And also his commitment to the Davis Cup is probably as high as any of contemporaries.

          However, he is still a Tennis player. You would have thought that the British Olympic team had someone senior with a good CV and name recognition in a sport where the the Games is the peak achievement.

          Comment


            #6
            Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

            My hope is that it'll be shown live in the US so we can get together with our international friends to mock it as relentlessly and mercilessly as all opening ceremonies need mocking.

            But, because this is NBC, that won't happen, and we'll see all your snide comments over Facebook and OTF 4 hours before we get to see it, so we won't even get a chance to be surprised at what is awful about it.

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              #7
              Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

              andy coming across pretty well just now, saying it's highlight of his career. muddles your point regarding peak achievement, which i would have agreed with though

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                #8
                Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                NBC is delaying the ceremony by 30 minutes so their coverage can start at 8pm on the East Coast, which seems even stupider than their normal tape delay approach. 30 minutes. Just show it live!

                It's delayed until 8pm here on the West Coast, I may try to find a decent stream on Kodi on the Fire Stick to watch it live.

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                  #9
                  Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                  Strap in, here we go...

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                    #10
                    Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                    wow, bbc's Hazel Irving getting the boot in while introducing the Olympic opening ceremony, while invoking dickens' best of times worst of times, "Brazilian economy is tanking, political turmoil, health crisis, IOC scandals......."

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                      #11
                      Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                      The floor projections are really impressive.

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                        #12
                        Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                        NBC's website kindly let's us know where to get live tweets of what the athletes are saying and what people are saying about the ceremony around the globe. Without letting us actually see it live. They haven't even connected their own thinking.

                        I can't express how much I despise the US's use of tape delay.

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                          #13
                          Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                          Incandenza wrote: NBC is delaying the ceremony by 30 minutes so their coverage can start at 8pm on the East Coast, which seems even stupider than their normal tape delay approach. 30 minutes. Just show it live!

                          It's delayed until 8pm here on the West Coast, I may try to find a decent stream on Kodi on the Fire Stick to watch it live.
                          Yep. Pain in the arse.

                          I can't even watch on the BBC, as B will be watching it on NBC when it comes on.

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                            #14
                            Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                            I hope they bring out Serginho from the 1982 World Cup to light the flame.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                              Gorgeous rendition of the Brazilian anthem. It might not be a great hymn in its orchestral form but it sounds great unplugged in a mellow bossa take.

                              They're putting together an epic national history mise en scene now, I wonder if it's going to conclude with a theatrical rendition of the coup against Dilma.

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                                #16
                                Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                                Genocide, slavery, but set to nice music, so crowd applauds.

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                                  #17
                                  Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                                  wondering how they can possibly choreograph the giddy introduction of syphilis

                                  o
                                  tee rex wrote: Genocide, slavery, but set to nice music, so crowd applauds.

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                                    #18
                                    Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                                    Al Gore is the emcee?

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                                      #19
                                      Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                                      The earth is burning!

                                      Who directed this: Roland Emmerich?

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                                        #20
                                        Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                                        Our local commercial channel is making sure we don't miss any nations - after the ad breaks the coverage picks up where it left off. The delay will add about an hour to eternity, we're up to "D" so far.

                                        Split has the most medal winners per capita of any city, says commentator.

                                        Costume report: Cameroon winning, Canada losing.

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                                          #21
                                          Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                                          Good call on teh costumes rex, Cameroun with the gold, and Argentina with silver. Oz' striped blazers and white bermudas were pretty good too, as were the Saudi women's dresses. Canada's contingent is the worst-dressed, possibly the worst blazer and shirt combo in olympic history.

                                          France is also shockingly subpar. US with the best-cut blazers (RL), and winners in the footwear competition too with the tricolor topsiders. UK boxy peacoats look very awkward, good idea, bad execution.

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                                            #22
                                            Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                                            Big cheer for Palestine as they walk out.

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                                              #23
                                              Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                                              I laughed at the 2012 Danny "egregious" Boyleathon, but in retrospect maybe I was being a curmudgeon if this evening is more like the norm. Was all video screen bollocks for the ceremony and now the only thing keeping me going for the parade is that Hazel sounds mair drunk than me.

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                                                #24
                                                Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                                                Portugal's cheer in Rio was louder than Britain's in Sydney. FACT.

                                                Also, the Brazilians need to sort out their spelling, they keep catching me unawares (Kenya with a 'Q'?).

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                                                  #25
                                                  Opening ceremony hopes and wishes

                                                  BBC coverage:

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