Friday, August 08, 2008

Olympic Opening Night Highlights

Wow! The Chinese know how to put on a show. The drummers were amazing. All 2008 of them! The giant LCD screen on the floor and the screens around the top of the "bird nest" (stadium) were so cool. I love how every athlete in the parade of nations will walk across paint and then leave their footprint on that huge picture the performer artists started at the beginning of the ceremonies. If you didn't watch the ceremonies, pop on over to YouTube and search for some clips. They were amazing to watch!

Fashion:
Hungary's outfits- WTH were they thinking being so matchy matchy with the women's suits? The material would have been fine just as a skirt, but both skirt and jacket were too much. I know it was a flowery print, but from afar, it looked like red cow print!

There was one other team at the beginning of the parade that had these awful drab olive green outfits on, but I can't think of who they were. I'm sure it will be on the web tonight or tomorrow. I'll try to find a picture.


Sheer number of athletes:
US Athletes- Wow again! 647 athletes are taking part in the Olympic games this year. But seriously, how many times must we see Lebron James and Kobe Bryant? The cameras keep cutting back to them, even when the rest of the nations are still walking! And where were all the gymnasts in the parade? I didn't see a one!

President Bush and Laura Bush- why did they look so flipping bored everytime the camera panned over them?? It's the Olympic opening ceremony. I would be so freaking excited to be there! I believe I heard he's the first US President to attend an Olympics outside of the USA.

How cute is the little boy with Yao Ming? His name is Lin Hao and he was a survivor of the earthquake that killed so many. 20 out of 30 of his classmates were killed during that disaster. He went back to help two of them. He's only 9 years old! I thought he was younger seeing him next to Yao Ming. It just shows you how TALL Yao is!

End of the opening ceremony:
How neat was that? He "ran" along the perimeter of the stadium with the torch as the scroll unrolled and then lit the torch which was huge and beautiful! And check out all the fireworks. Wow!

I know there is more I'm missing but that's all you're getting for now!

4 comments:

Melodie said...

I was wondering where the gymnasts were, too. Maybe they were behind the basketball players and we just couldn't see them because they are so much shorter?

I can understand W being bored. I was bored, too. But, when it counted (when our athletes came out) the Bushes not only stood up for them, but IMO they looked like a couple of proud parents watching their own children.

Heather said...

If I recall in the 2004 Olympics the gymnasts (or maybe it was a different sport) weren't coming to the opening ceremony because they had preliminary competition or something very early the next morning. The whole team stayed and slept, so maybe that's what happened?

Holly said...

I thought the ceremonies were really good. We recorded them, and watched them this morning. I had to laugh when Erin said one of the countries outfits looked like McDonald's uniforms. They did!
I didn't like how the US had the men and women in the same outfits. I like it when you can tell the women from the men as they are coming in.

Melodie said...

Ralph Lauren designed the US athletes' outfits for the opening ceremony.