Beijing 2008: Opening Ceremony For The Games Of The XXIX Olympiad…

This years most anticipated event began tonight, the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, they were televised live around Australia on the Seven Network with coverage getting underway at 9:50pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. At 10:00pm (08:00pm Beijing time) the show will begin from the Beijing National Stadium, with a countdown no one will forget for a very long time.

The coverage was hosted by Mathew White from the International Broadcast Centre, awaiting in the main stadium was Rick Birch, Sonia Kruger and Bruce McAvany guiding viewers through the ceremony, later on Sandy Roberts would join Bruce for the athletes parade.

Seven Network Olympic Opener.
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First of all I thought I would place these sponsor shots here, they appear to be using the Olympic landmarks of Beijing in the background with the sponsor on top, and I was really annoyed with the comercial breaks placed within the ceremony, more on that at the end.

The ceremony started off with 2008 performers in the centre of the National Stadium with ancient drums in front of them, which would light up on cue to give us the countdown till the opening. The count down started at 60 and working its way down in 10’s until it reached 10 and counted down till 1, in both Chinese and Roman numbers.

As expected once the countdown reached 0 the stadium was illuminated by fireworks in a spectacular fashion, the performers then displayed a military precision performance, beating the drums and all 2008 having the exact same movements moving as one. Towards the end of there performance they all had glow sticks which they used in there routine, suddenly the stadium lights went out and all we could see were these glow sticks moving in precision, then suddenly as before the lights came back on for the end of the performance.

After that stunning display it was time for the Chinese flag to enter the stadium, it was carried in by children who handed it over to military personal for the flag raising ceremony and the Chinese national anthem. The main component of the ceremony then got underway featuring a large roll of paper which will be the main feature throughout the whole ceremony. Performers would dance on the paper while also at the same time draw on it to make their own artwork in the process.

One of the key elements of the next performance you may remember from the leaked footage earlier in the week from the South Korean television network SBS, the columns which bob up and down to make different formations. Below is a collection of highlights…

It was now time for the athletes to come out into the stadium, as always Greece is the first nation to head out, and with the order of the teams coming out using the Chinese alphabet, the order was a little strange from an English point of view. Australia had to wait until the very end, being the third last team to enter the stadium; with one of the largest teams at the games it took them a while.

Well no one can say Beijing hasn’t gone off with a bang, the ceremony was spectacular and the lighting of the caldron was certainly different, but I still think Sydney’s was better with the combination of running water (but I could be biased) What are your thoughts, surly we can all agree it was way better than Athens?

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