2016 Rio Olympics

My mum's wondering why the floor of the opening ceremony is in that funny shape. Any idea? :)

I've heard the stadium officials had to cut the lock because they lost the keys, the Australian team got robbed...

Canada!!

US broadcast is on an hour tape delay so NBC can keep their advertisers happy, and yet they cut into the middle of a performance anyway, the thing they claimed that would help avoid.. :P

(Ok, I guess they can cut in and out of stuff without skipping things at least.)

edited 5th Aug '16 5:28:09 PM by Elle

Yes, a person made a mistake and a group of people got robbed. Truly, that is all that it takes to declare an opening ceremony a 'shitshow'.

edited 5th Aug '16 5:43:03 PM by Stratofarius

And once again Pacific Time Zone broadcasts are delayed to 7:30 PM (or 10:30 PM EST).

Seriously, screw NBC and its coverage!

Anyone to point me to a video of the opening ceremony unaldultered by this wretched network?

edited 5th Aug '16 6:13:16 PM by GrafVonTirol

I've been watching the opening for the Rio Olympics. So far, the opening is pretty great. I'll admit, it's not as good as Beijing's opening ceremony but it still quite good.

To be fair, no opening ceremony should even try to top the Beijing one. That was epically coordinated to the tiniest detail.

Rio (and Brazil) played to their strengths (multiculturalism, music, environment), instead.

edited 5th Aug '16 6:26:34 PM by Quag15

You'll need a VPN to pick up a stream from another country, all the good ones need paying for though. (I tested Tunnel Bear that they reccomend, it's nice and simple but 5 minutes of video burns through about 100 MB of bandwidth so the free allowance won't get you much.)

And really clever use of that projector. The optical illusion they pulled off with the people hopping over building roofs was awesome.

edited 5th Aug '16 6:30:03 PM by Elle

Stratofarious: you're goddamn right it makes it a shitshow, especially since the the people robbed were A GODDAMN OLYMPIC TEAM.

The Tonga flagbearer is ready to wrestle. That body has way too much body oil.

edited 5th Aug '16 6:43:23 PM by Quag15

NBC coverage is making me so angry. #NBCfail is trending on Twitter, just like it is every Olympics :/

Opportunists prey on crowd drawn by big event, news at 11. It could and does happen everywhere.

Losing the stadium key is admittedly an amusing screwup but hardly a disaster.

What about the Athens one? One of the announcers said it reminded him of Star Wars.

Ok, the seed boxes opening and trees showing up in order to form the Olympic rings was a damn good moment.

Sadly, I was a bit too young to care about that one back then. I do remember Björk's performance there, though. I'll have to check the full ceremony later.

edited 5th Aug '16 7:01:04 PM by Quag15

Here is a translation of A Flor e a Náusea by Carlos Drummond de Andrade. EDIT: The bottom poem, I mean.

edited 5th Aug '16 7:03:13 PM by Victin

My sister's a crazy gymnastics fan. She made me memorize multiple powerpoints over 200 slides on the history, statistics, and current teams. I've passed enough oral exams that I'm ready for this now.

The US women are guaranteed gold. They're so above the rest of the world it's comical.

I'm on the NBC time delay so I haven't seen most of Parade of Nations yet. What my sister is waiting for is Romania. Catalina Ponor is the flag bearer. For those who don't know, the Romanian women's gymnastics team, among the best in the world for 40 years, did not qualify for the Rio Olympics. This is a huge deal. People are losing their shit Just a few years ago they were the dominant team. Women's gymnastics the the sport in Romania. It's like if American football was an Olympic sport, and the US didn't qualify. Their dynasty is crumbling. They could only send one individual, Catalina Ponor, who was on their gold medal team in 2004. She's the last remnant of their dynasty, and she's Romania's flag bearer. Take note NBC, because that is a narrative.

We could have space aliens participating and We'd still have the camera focus on just the U.S.

Lol, Temer tried to speak, but he was booed.

edited 5th Aug '16 7:27:45 PM by Quag15

The design of the cauldron for the Olympic flame is... actually pretty unique and interesting.

That Olympic cauldron sculpture is beautiful. Symbolizing the sun is so appropriate.

edited 5th Aug '16 7:58:56 PM by nightwyrm_zero

@Quag 15: Did he? I didn't even see that, lol

@Olympic Flame: Beautiful indeed. By the way, this is the guy who lit it at the ceremony.

NBC didn't even mention Catalina Ponor. The commentators talked about gymnastics the whole time they were on Romania, but they didn't even mention Ponor's name. Isn't NBC always grasping for narratives? Only if they center around the US I guess

edited 5th Aug '16 8:16:44 PM by Cailleach

I thought for sure it would be Pele who lit the flame, but he's sick.

You know what, I'm mad about this. Because they were literally talking about gymnastics while they were on Romania (Because what else would you talk about?) They talked about Martha Karolyi, the former Romanian coach who now coaches the US women, they talked about the Romanian gymnastics legacy, but fail to even mention Ponor's name. Like what the hell? They talked about other flag bearers, but not one that is the sole representative of the legacy you're talking about?