What did we expect from a country of nuts?
EXPECTATIONS inside the Maracana stadium in the early hours of Saturday were not high. What, really, did Rio have to go on, boastingwise? Britain gave the world the Queen, Bond, Bowie, Mr Bean, Tubular Bells and the internet. What has Brazil ever contributed, apart from a near-gynaecological form of female depilation, the world’s highest-paid supermodel and a nut? Even Pele had called in sick. Would Team Refugee be able to afford a uniform? Would it really be worth staying up all night for?
Director Fernando Meirelles began with a tableau of Brazilians enjoying sport rather than killing each other,
then we were shown city and nature living side by side; tell that to the jaguar shot dead while escaping the torch procession. There was a drawing of a tree: probably the only one left. Some old bloke sang with a guitar. No idea who he was, but he certainly wasn’t Paul McCartney. We were then given the story of life itself: microorganisms (Tom Daley’s trunks? At least those would have stifled my yawns) crossed a projection of the ocean before seeing indigenous peoples and the arrival of Europeans in sailing ships. A city appeared out of nowhere, with acrobats teeming over buildings like ants.
The theme became clear – the perils of global warming. We saw scorched, barren soil, reminding me of the self-righteous video for Michael Jackson’s Earth Song. He should have been here, given Rio is at the cutting edge, literally, of plastic surgery, but instead we had Dame Judi Dench reading a poem, a low-emission Olympic flame carried by tennis great Gustavo Kuerten (no, me neither), and the Olympic rings picked out in green.
The star of the show was the aforementioned supermodel Gisele Bundchen, a woman who has never lifted anything heavier than a champagne flute or been able to run anywhere, given her shoes, performing her final catwalk prowl to the bossa nova of The Girl From Ipanema. After the mind-numbing procession of teams bearing flags and smartphones, I was awoken from my slumbers by gymnast Simone Biles, a speck destined for greatness, Team GB led by Andy Murray, wearing a smile as big as his bank account, and finally Team Refugee.
When this small, disparate gang entered the stadium, the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention. The displaced from Ethiopia, Syria, South Sudan and Congo showed the billions watching that it’s humanity that counts, not borders, not jingoism, not winning gold. A team that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we all inhabit a pale blue dot… that’s here, that’s home, that’s us.