More feeling than flash at Olympic opening

RIO DE JANEIRO: What it lacked in flashiness, Rio made up for with feeling.

With a limited budget, the consequence of a biting recession that roiled preparations for South America’s first Olympics, Brazil laced its highenergy opening party for the games of the 31st Olympiad with a sobering message of the dangers of global warming.

Graphic projections of world cities being swamped by rising seas set Rio’s otherwise festive gala apart from the more self-congratulatory and lavish celebrations that Beijing and London wowed with in 2008 and 2012.

“The heat is melting the ice cap,” a voice intoned in the Maracana Stadium. “It’s disappearing quickly.”

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. After all, nowhere parties quite like Rio. Supermodel Gisele Bundchen shimmered to The Girl from Ipanema.

Fireworks formed the word “Rio” in the skies. The colossal Christ the Redeemer statue was bathed in Brazilian yellow and green. And dancers grooved to thumping funk and sultry samba.

After one of the roughest rides yet from vote to games by an Olympic host, the city of beaches, carnival, grinding poverty and wealth celebrated Brazil’s can-do spirit, biodiversity and melting-pot history.

The crowd roared when Bundchen sashayed from one side of the 78000-seat arena to the other.

In a video, UN secretarygeneral Ban Ki-moon said the games “celebrate the best of humanity” and appealed for an Olympic truce, calling on “all warring parties to lay down their weapons” during the two weeks of sporting achievement.

Zika

There were times after the International Olympic Committee selected Rio ahead of Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid in 2009 when it seemed the city of 6.5 million people might not get its act together for the world’s greatest sporting mega-event.

The spreading health crisis of the mosquito-born Zika virus kept some athletes away. Promises to clean up Rio’s filthy waters

The heavy bill for the games, at least $12 billion (R164 billion), made them unpopular with many. Heavily armed security stopped protesters from getting close to the stadium before the ceremony.

But with more than a dash of “gambiarra”, the Brazilian art of quick-fixes and making do, Rio is ready.

“Our admiration is even greater because you managed this at a very difficult time in Brazilian history.

“We have always believed in you,” IOC president Thomas Bach said.

The honour of officially declaring the games open fell to Michel Temer, Brazil’s unpopular interim president, remained unfulfilled. who was loudly faced shouts of Temer”.

He was standing suspended President Rousseff.

She was ousted less than four months before the games for alleged budget violations – one of many spanners in the works of Brazil’s Olympic preparations, and it affected the opening ceremony itself.

Fewer than 25 foreign heads of state were listed as attending, others seemingly staying away to avoid giving the impression of taking sides amid Brazil’s leadership uncertainty.

The cannonball-shaped cauldron was lit by Brazilian marathoner Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima. – AP jeered and “out with

in for Dilma