{"id":501,"date":"2010-02-14T20:29:43","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T00:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.arts.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=501"},"modified":"2010-02-14T20:29:43","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T00:29:43","slug":"opening-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2010\/02\/14\/opening-ceremony\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday night millions of people witnessed an event that only happens every four years, the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics.\u00c2\u00a0 This year the world wide sport event is being held in Vancouver, Canada and was kicked off by a 3.5 hour performance.\u00c2\u00a0 And despite the falling snow seen on the television screen, it all took place indoors.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the first time the an opening ceremony has done so.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m betting cuz of local weather.\u00c2\u00a0 Events on the first day of competing were actually postponed due to bad conditions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The ceremony started with Canadian snowboarder Johnny Lyal flying through constructions of the Olympic rings that exploded outward with snow and ice.\u00c2\u00a0 This was then followed by the tamer display of the Canadian national anthem.\u00c2\u00a0 In both English and French, as much of the portion of the program was.<\/p>\n

Following this was a large collection of Native Americans on the stage, well the Canadian version anyway, acting as the First Nations of Canada.\u00c2\u00a0 Together a large amount of tribesmen as well large statues,\u00c2\u00a0 officially welcomed the athletes and spectators to the area.<\/p>\n

Next came the second most boring part, the parade of nations.\u00c2\u00a0 Led by Greece with Canada bringing up the rear all the competing nations walked across the stage grounds.\u00c2\u00a0 It would make things go a lot quicker if just flag bearers were down on the ground and it would be a nice equalizing agent.\u00c2\u00a0 Some countries have less than ten athletes competing, and that just looks awkward against the beastlyness of the United States.<\/p>\n

The rest of the ceremony was essentially a giant tribute to the host country, but it was very entertaining to watch.\u00c2\u00a0 Except for the opening remarks which were so long I was actually able to watch a Simpsons and The Red Green Show episode without missing anything important.<\/p>\n

\"\"Come the time to light the Olympic touch, the previously unflawed performance had a little hiccup. Of the four supports for the cauldron, only three were able to emerge.\u00c2\u00a0 It must have been tough for the torch bearers, having to just stand there and smile, all the while thinking Dang! This thing is heavy.\u00c2\u00a0 Hurry up!<\/em><\/p>\n

But to be honest, I wasn’t that impressed with the entire thing, even with the snowboarders and skiers doing tricks from the ceiling.\u00c2\u00a0 Beijing was better.<\/p>\n

Your Olympic watching blogger,<\/p>\n

Jenny<\/p>\n

PS.\u00c2\u00a0 Did you guys know we actually have two UofM students in the Olympics?\u00c2\u00a0 They’re figure skaters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday night millions of people witnessed an event that only happens every four years, the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics.\u00c2\u00a0 This year the world wide sport event is being held in Vancouver, Canada and was kicked off by a 3.5 hour performance.\u00c2\u00a0 And despite the falling snow seen on the television screen, it all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}