Nice soggy opening ceremony. Poor France.
They were showing random close-ups of people, and we got to see a fat guy pick his nose, then the most Gold-Medal mustache I’ve ever seen! It was like real-life Bob from Bob’s Burgers.
Getting kinda silly now…
So, the cauldron is a Montgolfier balloon?
Celine Dion?
Wow, I didn’t realize her disability/illness allowed her to still sing.
I’m really glad she still can.
Is it teathered?
Water drops on the camera lens just makes everything look like a Monet painting.
No pne seemed to mind the rain that much.
It was too long and the acts were of variable quality but the highlights were great and the climax with the balloon was spectacular; may have even beaten Barcelona for the most memorable cauldron.
Bien Joue Paris !
I thought so. The torch relay seemed to go on forever
By the way, how did the balloon rise up? Helicopter?
Yeah, when it’s like this who cares if it rains.
Quite.
I think it’s a hot air balloon.
Oh! The Humanity!
OK this is the one news item I can find about the particulars of the balloon cauldron:
Paris Opening Ceremony: Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner light the Olympic cauldron - Yahoo Sports
No details of the tethering or fueling (and you only have their word on it being a HAB) I suppose we’ll need to see it in daylight to get a better sense of how it works.
I assume it’s going to land soon?
It can’t just remain aloft for the duration?
As someone who has seen literally thousands of hot air balloons, I’m skeptical that it’s actually a hot air balloon. I would assume helium (tethered, of course). Your average hot air balloon in a modern design (teardrop shape, propane burner, maybe 1000 pounds payload) stays up for maybe two hours. Though some of that of course is not blowing too far away as well as how long people really want to be up. I’ve seen special shapes that were so big and their envelopes so heavy they couldn’t get off the ground except in absolutely perfect conditions.
It looks cool, but even with the continual flame below I’m not convinced it can remain bouyant with just hot air in a Parisian summer.
And of course that assumes it’s actually floating and not on a pedestal or hoisted.
The balloon part looks sealed so you may be right that it is a helium balloon.
Though how heavy is the cauldron below?
The local news said something like floated into the air and looks likea hot air balloon.
I’ve recorded the boat parade, and playing it back now (paused around the letter “K”). I know that the countries parade in alphabetical order according to the host country’s alphabet - with Greece always first and the host country last. However - I expected the United States to be listed as “Etats-Unis”, and parading just before Ethiopia. They weren’t there - I’m curious to see where they were placed. (maybe under “U” for “Unis”)? Or maybe near the end since LA will host the next Olympics?
Under-represented countries - Bangladesh with 5 athletes for 250 million population - about the same as Brazil who has 250 or so athletes. And DR Congo with 5 or 6 out of 110 million population.