And the scheme led to making the city itself into a protagonist, allowing IMO also a wise use of resources: why build a state-of-the-art boondoggle stadium to have athletes march in circles and stage a succession of floats and scale sets simulating the Louvre, the Opera, Notre Dame, etc. when, look, it’s right down the street, let’s just go there.
I ended up watching part of the opening ceremonies twice. I had it on in the background when I was at work. I watched it again with a friend that night. There were changes between the two. The live version they had an hour of no commercials, the evening on there were.
I don’t know for sure how many but they skipped a few countries in the evening broadcast. My friend is Latvian and she was waiting to see the team. When they were about to come up they went to commercial, when they came back they were on to Lithuania. I know they showed Latvia earlier because they were talking about the Latvian team being good at the 3x3 in basketball.
I wish they would show every country and say at least something about what they are there for, especially the smaller countries. Instead we have to keep going back and forth to the US team.
Peacock screwed up the start of swimming this morning. I started watching and it said it would start soon and didn’t start for 5-6 minutes so we missed the first two heats. They would also go to commercials and not come back until after part of the swim was over or missing a heat. They could have gone to commercials between heats instead of watching swimmers pick up their IDs.
I was half-watching the opening ceremonies. I think my only comment to my wife was “She’s not French” when Lady Gaga came on.
Neither was Celine Dion or some torchbearers.
I watched both the Lady Gaga and Celine performances. I thought they were both amazing. So much talent. There must have been so many rehearsals to get all that dancing so perfect. Well Done.
To be honest, I was not a fan of the American team chanting “USA! USA!” while on that boat during the opening ceremonies.
Did anyone else keep thinking about Assassin’s Creed when the torchbearer was running around? I kept expecting him to pop up behind Macron and stab him with his wrist blade.
I just wondered who decided to have them carrying a huge smoking joint.
Yeah - not a big fan when the fans cheer it. Even classier when the team itself does.
Wouldn’t it have been nice if NBC had mentioned that fact?
NBC coverage was abysmal. If Kelly Clarkson said “oh my God so cool” one more time I was gonna throw something through the TV.
I miss Bob Costas and his maps and factoids about each country… What we got was “here comes Ecuador.” Why does Hong Kong have its own team? When did Eswatini become a country? What was the name of the piece by Ravel that the piano player was playing? None of your business, apparently.
For the ceremony itself: audacious. Largely successful (The cancan dancers needed more rehearsal). Opening ceremonies are always weird…nothing new here.
Walking on pointe shoes isn’t that hard. Training is the trick. It’s the turning that hurts.
I watch with the sound off and my own music playing. That way I don’t have to wear out the Mute button on commercials.
US Women’s Water Polo this morning. They Crushed!
Is this trivia? I’ll guess:
Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming?
No, I was asking.
3-0 US vs NZ soccer/football right now.
Maine, North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming
2024 Paris Olympics: States with most Team USA athletes competing | 9news.com
Oof — the defending gold medalist Canadian women’s soccer team has been deducted six points and their coach suspended for a year over the revelation that they were using drones to spy on opponents, including their opening match opponent New Zealand.
They’d have probablyl said it while Dion was singing. For once they kept quiet.
I’m curious about the camera work during her performance. She was singing from a balcony on the Eiffel Tower, but there were good close-ups of her. Was the camera across the river with a great zoom lens?
I can’t believe they’d have let something like that slip through. Either traditional can-can is supposed to be somewhat random, or maybe the ledge they were dancing on was slippery in the rain, something like that.
Likely a drone. There was a crapton of drone work throughout the ceremonies.
4k camera drones have been a game changer for broadcast TV. For the cost of a helicopter, a pilot, and a camera crew for one day you can have an armada of drones.
To wrap up my thoughts (like, you’re all waiting breathlessly 
) on the aesthetics of the Opening Ceremonies, so we can get on to competition:
Usually, the ceremonies take place in a gigantic stadium, and feature state-of-the-art video and lighting gee-whiz stuff, and thousands of dancers and performers on the stadium floor, presenting the history and culture of the host country. Then the athletes march in, and we have the ceremony (raise the flag, declare the games open, light the torch) all in that same location.
They went another direction, to say the least.
Plus: it brings the beauty of the entire city into the ceremonies.
Minus:
It felt fragmented and disjointed.
Are what we’re seeing actually part of the ceremony, or is a video drop-in like Beyonce, or the Minions commercial?
The stadium felt like a high school football field, and the ceremonies there seemed anti-climactic.
I just saw that rugby 7s have their gold medal match today. They’ve been playing games a day since the middle of the week. That seems wild to me. 2 soccer matches in that time is congested.